Here for the Story
by WriteChristineR
Summary: "They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but words can capture things that pictures miss." Sequel to "Her Diamonds." Castle has an idea to help Beckett keep her mother's memory close... write about it.
1. A New Beginning

**Disclaimer:** Castle is not mine, it just keeps me sane. Or… keeps me from being sane, depending on who you talk to.

**Background:** This story is a sequel to another story I wrote called Her Diamonds. (.net/s/6615276/1/Her_Diamonds) You don't necessarily have to read that one to understand this, but if you really want the full story, you might want to. It's only eleven chapters, so it's a commitment, but not a huge one. This story will be a little bit AU, since it's taking place within the universe that the other story created. To recap really quickly: Castle spent the day with Beckett on the anniversary of her mom's death. They wound up finding out that Josh and Beckett broke up on the same day that Gina and Castle did, the week before. Castle was basically just there for her all day, and kind of during the culmination of everything, they kissed. Castle convinced Beckett that she should try to write down specific memories she had of her mother to help her remember better, and she eventually agreed. Now this story picks up with Beckett trying to write that story and Castle trying to help her, as their relationship develops from that first kiss. (For the record, Her Diamonds took place pre-Knockdown, so it actually was their first kiss.)

That little recap was rough, I know, but like I said, if you really want all the background in a form that makes more sense, I recommend that you read Her Diamonds. Otherwise, let that suffice, and here we go! This is the first sequel I've written, so I'm quite excited about it. :)

I intended to post this yesterday, since it was ready and it was Castle Day, but the document manager wouldn't work for me all day for some bizarre reason, but it finally did, so yay! Hope you enjoy!

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><p>"<em>I just… I don't want to forget."<em>

_He frowned, shaking his head. "You won't."_

_"No," she choked, frustrated, picking up her head to look at him straight-on. That was the default answer for him, the one she'd known he'd give. "I _am_. Every year I remember a little less about her." She didn't need to say who. He knew. "Who she was. How she was. Her face, the way she acted, the way her voice sounded. The details you can't see in pictures." She felt a few of the tears that had almost completely subsided start to roll down her cheeks again. She swallowed, and then whispered, "I can't lose her again."_

_She'd pulled away from him before commencing her little rant, and he now held out his hand, a simple invitation. She accepted it with very little hesitation, and he hooked his fingers around hers and squeezed gently. She expected another assurance that she would remember, and with his talent for persuasiveness she simply hoped that he could make her believe him. But what he gave her was something entirely different. He took a second before he responded, carefully turning something in his head as she had very seldom seen him do. "Do you want my advice?" he finally asked._

_She nodded. Anything that caused him to think so carefully was something she needed to hear._

_"When I want to remember something, I write about it. Sometimes I'll put it in one of my novels, but most of the time I just write it down. I have flash drives full of documents that will probably never be seen by anyone but me. And notebooks full of stuff from when Alexis was growing up. I know they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' but words… words can capture things that pictures miss. And a thousand words?" The corners of his mouth curled up just slightly, the first trace of a smile she'd seen him form that day. "Not that hard to write."_

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><p><strong>Here for the Story<strong>

"_Why are you here? You don't care about the victims so you aren't here for justice. You don't care that the guy's aping your books so you aren't here because you're outraged. So what is it, Rick? Are you here to annoy me?"_

"_I'm here for the story."_

**Chapter 1**

**A New Beginning**

_When I was six or seven, my mother spent a lot of time at a library in a low-rent part of the city. I never knew exactly why, but my guess is that there was some resource there that she needed for research on one of her cases. After school and on weekends she would often take me with her, and I would read or do homework while she did her work. Sometimes we'd be there for hours, but every time we were there after dark, right at sunset she would drop everything and take me by the hand to the front steps. Somehow, she always knew exactly when sunset would be._

_The scene at first, nothing visible but gray concrete, was uninspiring. But then, slowly, it would begin to change. The windows of the surrounding buildings would light up, creating a truly breathtaking scene. "Sunset is a magical time," she'd say. "It's the end of a day, a chance to erase our mistakes and begin again. It reminds us that whoever we are, wherever we are, and whatever we're doing, we can find beauty if we just stop and look for it. It's a time of transformation."_

Transformation. New beginnings. What else? She knew she needed to write more, but she didn't know what. She thrust her pen at the page, frustrated, making a random dot of ink. She looked up from the legal pad where she was writing and met the eyes of her own personal new beginning. "I can't do this," she told him bluntly.

"Sure you can. You were doing fine. What happened?"

"I don't know what else to write. And I'm sure what I have isn't any good anyway."

Castle raised his eyebrows. "I'll be the judge of that. Let's see."

But rather than handing it to him, she put her arm over the page. "No, really, you don't want to read it."

He gave her a serious smile, a look in his eye that made it clear he wasn't going to back down. "I'm positive I do. I can't help you fix it if you don't let me see."

"You think it needs fixed?"

"Well, you certainly seem to. Thing is, I have more confidence in your abilities than you do. I'm sure it's great. But if you let me read it I can help give you ideas about where to go next."

She sighed and passed him the legal pad. She'd said she wanted his help, hadn't she? This whole project had been his idea in the first place, and he certainly knew enough about writing to be helpful. Besides, it wasn't as if she'd really written anything too personal to share with him. She wasn't even sure anymore what "too personal" was. After all, he'd been with her all day on _this_ day, her least favorite day of the year. The anniversary of her mother's death. He'd seen so much of her, and done so much for her, that the lines between them were starting to blur.

No, her embarrassment about letting him read her writing had less to do with the content and more to do with the writing itself. He was a bestselling novelist. She hadn't written anything other than police reports since college. She didn't think she could possibly still be any good at it.

As he read, she found that she couldn't look at him. She didn't want to watch, didn't want to know what his face was doing. She didn't want to see his confusion as he tried to work out what one of her awkwardly-worded sentences was supposed to mean, or his amusement at the absurdity of her prose. She'd have to hear his review soon enough without speeding up the process. She didn't need previews.

She was apparently so far away, both trying to imagine and trying not to imagine what he was going to say, that she didn't even notice when he finished reading. "Okay," she was vaguely aware of a voice saying, although she didn't process its meaning.

It wasn't until she felt his fingertips rest gently on her shoulder that she was pulled back into the moment, and it happened so abruptly that she actually jumped. Regardless of how many times it had happened that day, she still couldn't get used to physical contact with Castle. "Sorry," he said, quickly pulling his hand back as though she was a snake that might bite him. "I'm finished reading."

She sighed. "Oh." That was all he said, nothing about how he'd liked it. That must've meant he was holding back, she figured, reluctant to hurt her feelings after all the emotion she'd already been through that day. She figured she'd say it first to spare him. "It sucks, right?"

"Sucks? Kate…" He studied her for a moment and then made a frustrated noise. "I hate that you're serious right now. No. It doesn't suck at all. You write beautifully. And I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you use cursive. That legal pad really isn't doing it justice. It's like a work of art."

She rolled her eyes. "It wasn't really my handwriting I wanted you to critique."

He chuckled. "I don't just mean the handwriting. The writing itself is really good too. I'm impressed."

She looked at him, untrusting. "You are?"

"Of course." He laid a hand on her arm. "You constantly impress me."

She pulled away. Yes, they'd kissed earlier, but that didn't mean he could suddenly touch her whenever he wanted, especially not when he was being irritating. "No," she protested. "Now you're patronizing me."

"Patronizing?" he sputtered, looking at his hand as if trying to figure out what was wrong with it. He set it down on the couch's armrest like he was putting it aside, and instead reached out to her with his eyes. "Katherine Beckett. You are a good writer, and the sooner you accept that, the better off we'll both be."

She sighed. In the time she'd known Castle, she'd become very good at ignoring his eyes, the power they'd always had to bore straight into hers, into her mind, her soul, and, ultimately and most disconcertingly, her heart. But it was getting harder to do. "Fine," she said, caving. "Thanks. But that still doesn't help me figure out what to write next."

He nodded. "I do have one suggestion, but you're not going to like it."

_Good._ Now they were getting somewhere. But still, her heart beat faster. She had done something wrong. "What?"

"It's good, it's just… It feels restrained. You're holding back. The stuff your mom said about why she loved sunset is great. That's the high point."

Her heart sank and she interrupted him. "I didn't even write that, she did. It's what she used to say, it's not like I made it up."

"You might not have made it up, but you still wrote it."

_"What?"_

"Writing isn't just about making stuff up. That's part of it, and I'll admit it's one of my favorite parts, but there's more to it than that. It's about making decisions. Choosing what to include and what to leave out. You chose well. That was the perfect thing to put there. My biggest issue is you're leaving yourself out. You were there too, weren't you?"

She frowned. "It's not about me. It's not my story."

"Of course it is. You're writing it, aren't you? They're your memories, not hers."

"It's not supposed to be about me, though."

"Maybe not primarily, but you can't pretend you weren't there. You weren't just an observer, you were a part of the moment. You participated, changed the course of the scene. Your reactions, even your thoughts… they're important. They're part of the story, the same as everything else. Why do you think I created Jameson Rook?"

"Sex scenes," she answered without an instant's pause.

"Oh," he said, surprised. "Well, yes. But also because whether you like it or not, when I'm around the work that you do is affected. I couldn't realistically base my books on you and what I observe shadowing you without having a character playing my role."

She eyed him.

"Well, my role in most respects. The point is, you're an important part of the story now because you were an important part then. You can't write yourself out."

She looked at the page of her own writing that he'd handed back to her. "Okay, I get what you're saying, but how do I do that here?"

"Just try to remember what you were thinking at the time. Did you like it, were you bored, did you understand what she was trying to tell you? If you still remember it this many years later, clearly it made an impression. That's the rest of the story. Write about that."

She nodded and reread the last bit before pausing with her pen poised above the page, thinking. Gathering ideas. When she was satisfied, she began writing again.

_I was still at the age that I wanted to be "just like Mom." There at the library, I did my homework as studiously and carefully as she did her research, but secretly I longed for the moment when it would all stop, if only for a few minutes. Sunset. When we sat there together on the front steps, hand in hand, it was like we were the only two people in the world. People walked past us, coming and going, and some looked, wondering why a mother and her young daughter were staring at the ugly buildings that surrounded us, oblivious to the beauty that we saw. It was our secret. Our moment. When she gave her speech, though it was mostly the same every time, I hung on every word, trying to memorize her wisdom._

_It got to the point where if it was still daylight when she finished working I would try to stall, asking her to read to me or help me with homework I already understood. I wanted the moment. The sunset. The new beginning._

She set the page on the coffee table and the pen on top of it. "There."

"All done?" Castle asked. "May I see?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

He set the pen on the table and took the legal pad. She again felt her heart rate increase when he began reading, but this time she watched him. It didn't much matter, though. Contrary to her expectation, Richard Castle was apparently not a reactive reader. His expression remained the same—serious, almost blank—until he finished. Then he set the pad back down on the coffee table and looked at her. "Beautiful," he said simply.

She felt herself blush. "Thanks."

"But more importantly, does it help you remember? When you read this, will you be able to picture the scene? Can you hear her voice, maybe even feel your hand in hers?"

She nodded. "Maybe not completely, but it helps."

He smiled. "We'll work on 'completely'. For now, what do you say we call it a night? It's getting late, and I'm sure you're tired. You've had a long day. And I should probably be getting home."

"Yeah." What he'd said about it being a long day couldn't have been truer. She was exhausted. "Thank you. For this, and for everything." She looked at the flower arrangement that he'd given her. "You… you made a terrible day a little more bearable."

"I'm just glad I could help." He stood up to go.

But she stood up as well. She remembered pushing him away a little guiltily. The kiss had meant something, and she couldn't let him leave thinking she regretted it. She didn't. She took his hand and pulled him into a slightly awkward half-hug, hating herself for the awkwardness. She wasn't generally an awkward person. New relationships never made her freeze up like this. But with Castle, somehow it was different. Being with him felt perfectly natural, but she still wasn't used to any kind of intimate interaction. "See you tomorrow," she told him quietly.

"Tomorrow," he repeated, a little dazed. "I'll be the one with the coffee."

"Perfect." He left, and she found herself staring at the yellow legal pad on the coffee table. Eleven years since her mother's death. Another anniversary she'd managed to get through. Another sunset. A new beginning.

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><p><em>In case you've not read my stuff before, I LOVE reviews. Always, but especially because this is a new story, let me know what you think! Thanks so much!<em>


	2. To Know You

**_Author's Note: _**_First of all, I can't thank you enough for all of the awesome feedback you gave me on the last chapter. I'm so glad you like how this is going, and considering it's my first attempt at writing a sequel, I'm glad you thought the transition from one story to the next worked well. I tried to respond to some of your reviews but I've actually been busier than expected lately and I know I didn't get to all of them, but I LOVED and completely appreciated every single one. _

_To address something that came up a lot, one of my biggest challenges with this story is trying to make the stuff Kate is writing her writing style and not mine. That's kind of hard because we've never really seen Beckett write anything, so I don't have anything to base what her writing would be like on. Basically I'm just trying to take what I know about her character and the fact that this kind of writing is a fairly new thing for her and... go from there. The whole concept of this story is rather meta, and I'm loving it. As a few of you pointed out, I'm obviously a writer, writing about Beckett writing. :) As for Castle's advice, something else that came up, yeah, some of it comes from me, but I'm also trying to channel Castle and what I think he would tell her. Specifically, the bit about not leaving herself out? I do think it's good advice, but I doubt I would've come up with it on my own. I mean, I did, I don't have Castle kidnapped and tied to a chair or anything... although I probably would if I could... but my thought was that Castle would want her included because while he probably is interested in learning about Johanna, I think he's more interested in learning about Kate. Random insight. :) _

_You can read now. Enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 2 <strong>

**To Know You**

Very rarely had Castle actually been nervous when he walked into the Twelfth. If he ever even had, it would've been when he was trying to get Beckett to forgive him for something, like when he'd looked into her mother's case without her permission or when she'd been upset with him for not calling when he got back from the Hamptons. This, however, was something different entirely.

Even if he'd somehow known what he was walking into the day before, he never in a million years could've predicted that it would turn out like this. She'd let him stay with her all day. They'd kissed. She'd shared so much with him. After reading what she'd written the previous day, he realized just how much she'd shared. She'd taken him to that old library, one of the places she best remembered her mother, and she'd sat on the steps with _him_, holding _his _hand in place of her mom's. No matter how many pages he filled, he'd never be able to describe how privileged he felt to have been a part of that.

And then there was the kiss. It was clear that his relationship with Kate was changing, but exactly what that meant he had yet to work out. He hadn't said anything to anyone about it, not even his family. As far as his mother and daughter knew, he'd been at the precinct all day helping with a case. He hadn't told them that, but he hadn't told them otherwise. And Kate had already made him promise not to say anything to anyone at the precinct.

He was supposed to act as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed. But how could he do that when so much had? He was a writer, not an actor. And Ryan and Esposito were detectives. It was their job to notice things. Surely they'd figure out something was different.

Still, as promised, he walked into the precinct with two coffees from a nearby coffee shop and made his way to Beckett's desk. She was already there, noticed him coming and shot him a quick smile. She looked maybe a little more tired than usual, but otherwise the same as ever.

He set one of the coffees in front of her and took his usual seat beside her desk. "Hey," he greeted her. "How are you doing?"

She gave him a look that told him he was already doing a poor job acting as if nothing had happened. "I'm fine, Castle." She took a sip of her coffee. "Thanks."

"Ryan and Esposito here yet?"

"Yeah, they're here." She nodded toward the break room. "I was, uh, visiting relatives yesterday."

Castle nodded, glad they had their story straight. And it wasn't exactly untrue. Still, he jumped when Esposito showed up behind him.

"See, Castle?" he said. "She's here, she's fine. You were all worried for nothing yesterday."

He looked at Beckett, who had her eyebrow raised at him. "I don't know if I'd say I was worried, exactly…"

"Ryan," Esposito called to his partner, who was now at his desk. "Would you say Castle was worried yesterday?"

The other detective nodded. "Oh yeah, big time."

Beckett rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "You don't have to worry about me, Castle."

He nodded. "I know." Not that he believed it. No matter what happened, where their relationship did or didn't go, he'd always think about her, and he'd always worry about her. But in order to keep up appearances that nothing had changed, he turned to the other detectives. "You guys were right, I may have overreacted a little."

Ryan and Esposito exchanged a look that must've meant something, although Castle didn't know what.

"I probably should've told you guys I wasn't coming in," Beckett admitted. "It just slipped my mind until the last minute. Now, can we get back to work?"

Castle was a little put off by how easily Beckett was able to act casual when he was finding it so difficult. Either she was a much better actress than he was an actor, or she didn't think their relationship had changed as much as he did. Every fiber of his being hoped for the first option, and he made himself believe that this must be it. Kate Beckett was fantastic at everything he'd ever seen her attempt. Why not add acting to that list?

Esposito went back to his desk and Castle stayed in his usual chair beside Beckett's, trying to act the same way he always had. The problem was, he had no interest in acting that way. The heart of the woman that he had worked so hard to win was finally his, at least he thought it was, and he didn't want to hide it. He wanted to flaunt it. He wanted to hold a parade to announce and celebrate his triumph. But Kate wanted to keep whatever had happened between them private, and he had to respect that, at least for awhile. It was going to be a long day.

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><p>A little later, Castle followed Beckett into her car to interview the family of their latest victim. He was thankful to finally have a moment alone with her, but he was beginning to wonder if he'd imagined the entirety of the day before. Perhaps it had all just been an extremely vivid dream?<p>

But when she closed the door and started the car, the possibility of that vanished. "If we don't get finished too late, why don't you come to my place after work?" She asked casually, as though this was the kind of thing that they did all the time.

He studied her face carefully, looking for signs that she was joking. He found none. "Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, if you want. I wrote a little bit more of that thing last night after you left, if you want to take a look at it."

"You want me to?"

"Yeah, you know, just to let me know if I'm on the right track."

He smiled. Why she was so insecure about her writing, he didn't understand. She was usually so confident, and her writing was good. He had to admit though, he liked being able to show her what he did for once rather than the other way around. Not to mention that he found her uncertainty adorable. "I'm sure you are. They're your memories, not mine. But I'd be happy to look at it for you. Should I bring dinner?"

She shrugged. "We'll see what time we get out of here. Thank you, by the way."

He wished she'd quit thanking him when he hadn't done anything worthy of being thanked. "For what?"

"Not saying anything in front of the guys. I could tell you wanted to."

He nodded. "How long do we have to hide all of this for? I don't like hiding things, not from my friends and my family. And I'm not very good at it, especially when it's something I don't have any interest in hiding."

"I never said you couldn't tell your family."

"Well, you never said I could, so I just assumed."

"You really didn't tell them anything?"

He shook his head. "They think I was at the precinct yesterday."

She smiled. "I'm surprised. I thought you would."

"Well… can I?"

"Can we talk about it tonight?"

He nodded. "And you're okay?" He'd asked her this before, but he thought he'd ask again now that he was the only one around to hear.

"I'm okay," she said with a tight, confident smile. Then it softened and she glanced at him and away from the road for an instant. "I love the flowers."

He smiled. "I hoped you would."

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><p>He walked up to the door of her apartment just a few minutes after the time she expected him. She wouldn't let him bring food, insisting that he'd done more than enough for her the previous day and that it was her turn, but still he hadn't come empty-handed.<p>

When she opened the door, she skipped the greeting and glared immediately at the bag he was holding. "Castle, I told you not to bring anything."

"You told me not to bring food," he reminded her. "This isn't food."

She rolled her eyes. "Then what is it?"

"Maybe if you let me come in I'll show you."

She moved away from the door and he walked into the entry. "It smells really good in here."

"That's because I took care of the food," she said with a half-smirk. "I said I would, didn't I?"

He frowned. "You cooked?"

"We got back from the precinct an hour ago. I'm good, but I'm not that good."

He followed her gesture into the sort of living room area where they'd been the day before, and on the coffee table he saw a smorgasbord of Chinese food large enough to feed many more than two people. "Wow," he said, sitting down on the couch. "You _are_ good."

"I know." She sat down beside him. "Now, what's in the bag?"

He shook his head. "Later."

She gave him her trademarked "I-mean-business" face. "Now."

He'd meant to give this to her more… officially. With more flourish. When it meant more. But reluctantly, he took it out of the small bag he was carrying and handed it to her.

It was a notebook with a gorgeous cover made of soft, dark brown leather. The pages were gold-edged, and in the bottom of the bag was a fancy gold pen. "I thought that might be a little better to write in than that legal pad you've been using," Castle told her with a shrug. "And that pen? It'll write more smoothly than any other pen you've ever used in your life. I've been using them for years."

She turned a few of the pages gingerly. "Castle, I couldn't write in this. It's so… perfect. I'd mess it up."

"Au contraire," he protested. "Notebooks are made to be used. Write in it. Fold back the pages, break the binding, spill coffee on it. Mess it up. Make it yours."

"It looks expensive."

"I bought it for you. What it cost is none of your concern. It's yours now, and you should use it."

She sighed and put it aside. "Thanks, Castle. That's really nice."

"Hey, don't mention it. So you said you wrote more last night? Should we do that first or eat first?"

"We should probably eat while the food's still warm."

He smiled. "Great, I'm starving."

She rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"I was trying to be polite."

"Well cool it, would you? You've been acting weird all day."

"How is being polite acting weird?"

"It's not that, you're just not acting like yourself."

He smirked. "I would've thought you'd like that."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, me too." She took a plate and handed the other one to Castle. "Take whatever looks good, obviously we have plenty."

He reached for the nearest container and put some on his plate. "So… you don't like it?"

"It's just awkward, Castle. I don't want everything to change."

He put down his fork and looked at her. "We kissed. You and me. You said you didn't want to pretend it never happened, and I certainly don't want that, but that's what we've been doing all day long. Pretending it never happened. If we're going to acknowledge it, it's going to have to change some things."

"I don't mind change, but…" She sighed and looked straight at him. "Okay, I'm only gonna say this once."

He nodded. "I'm listening."

"The Castle I kissed yesterday was someone I thought I could be completely comfortable around, all the time. He'd always be there for me, and I'd always be there for him. I told him things that I've never told anyone else, and probably never will tell anyone else. But then today… I don't know. It's like you're expecting something from me, and I don't know what it is."

"I'm not expecting anything from you, I'm just trying to figure out where we stand. But I think our fundamental difference of opinion is that you don't want anything to change, and I do."

"I'm not saying I don't want anything to change. I'm just saying I don't want everything to change."

"So… small steps?"

Slowly, she nodded. "Small steps," she repeated. "Like what?"

He shrugged. "Can I tell my mom and Alexis? If I make sure they don't say anything to anyone else? That way we can do this kind of thing," he motioned to indicate the food, "at my place if we want to."

She started to nod but then stopped. "Tell them what?"

"That… we kissed? And that I'm helping you with a project and we might be spending more time together outside of work."

"I can live with that. But nothing to anyone at work. Not yet."

"I guess I can live with that. Have you talked to Lanie?"

"Not yet."

"Well, can you please do that before I see her?"

"Yeah, I will."

"Good." He picked his plate back up. "Let's eat."

* * *

><p>"Did you get fortune cookies?" Castle asked as he helped clean up and put away leftovers.<p>

She smirked. "Come on, Castle. What kind of woman do you think I am?" She nodded toward the coffee table, which had been completely cleared of everything except two plastic-wrapped fortune cookies.

He grinned. "Exactly my kind. Should I make coffee?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll make coffee."

She nodded. "Half of this stuff is going to go bad if I leave it in my fridge. Do you want to bring some home for Alexis and Martha?"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure they'd like that. And it definitely wouldn't go to waste."

"Great. I'll pack some up for you and leave it in the fridge. Don't forget to get it before you leave."

"I wouldn't dare. Why don't you go get that writing you were going to show me ready? I'll finish up in here." He smirked. "Unless you don't trust me alone in your kitchen."

"Actually, the kitchen seems like a pretty safe place for you." She smiled. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all. The coffee will just take a few minutes and I'll meet you out there."

She nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

He finished transferring some of the leftover Chinese food into one of the containers Kate had gotten out for him while the coffee brewed, and wondered what kind of a memory she'd prepared for him to read this time. He knew she wasn't writing them for him, not at all for him, but he couldn't help but feel that way, just a little. He knew his detective well, almost as well as he knew the nature of writing. No matter who was writing or what they were writing about, audience was an important consideration. Beckett was a private person by nature, and she was writing on very personal subject matter. He didn't believe for a second that as she wrote, she wasn't thinking about the fact that he would eventually be reading it.

He clearly remembered something she had once told him: "Oh Castle, the things you don't know about me could fill a book." He also clearly remembered the next thought to go through his head, although he hadn't said it aloud: "One day, they will." At the time, he'd believed that he'd be the one to write it, but now… somehow this seemed more fitting. By writing about her memories, Kate was opening a window for him, allowing him to see into her past, to know and experience things that he couldn't through any other means. In some ways, it was a dream come true.

He'd always believed that, one day, he and Kate would take their relationship to the next level. He valued her friendship, but since the first day he met her, he knew friendship would never be enough. But believe that though he did, he hadn't always been sure that she would ever fully open up to him. He learned a little more about her every day, but she was such a complex person that, try as he might, he still wasn't sure he'd ever know everything there was to know.

Working to achieve insurmountable goals, however, was what made life worth living. In his life to this point, Rick Castle had already done several things that, to most people, would be unachievable. Understanding Kate Beckett was his newest challenge, and the most difficult one he'd yet faced. Still, he couldn't remember ever being so committed to a single goal. If it took him the rest of his life to figure her out, to learn all her nuances, it was a commitment he was willing to make.

The writing that she was doing now was for her. He'd told her to do it for herself, and he wanted that to be her reason. He wanted the writing to make her feel better, to really help her to remember her mother, and to create a lasting record of this memory. But it also did serve a secondary purpose, one that he hadn't intended but he wasn't sorry about: it was a way for him to better get to know his detective, to find out bits about her past that he otherwise might never have.

When the coffee was finished he poured two cups, prepared them according to his and Kate's tastes, and brought them into the other room. "Fortune cookies first?" he asked, handing Kate her coffee.

"Sure." He sat down, and she handed him one of the cookies, which he proceeded to unwrap.

He cracked the cookie in half and removed the little slip of paper inside. "'Warning,'" he read aloud. "Oh, this ought to be good. 'Do not…'" He frowned at it, laughed, and continued. "'Do not eat your fortune.'"

Kate laughed. "Oh come on, what does it really say?"

He handed it to her.

She read it and looked at him, surprised and amused. "It really does say that." She laughed again. "Wow."

"Your turn," he said before eating his cookie.

"Okay." She unwrapped hers and broke it in two. She smiled. "'Now is the time to take a leap of faith,'" she read.

"Nice." He smiled. "Fortune cookies are wise."

"Oh yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. "'Do not eat your fortune.' Very wise."

"That is wise," Castle insisted. "It's paper, it probably wouldn't taste very good."

"In that case, I don't know how I could ever have doubted the wisdom of the cookies." She smiled and proceeded to eat hers.

"Alright, I'm supposed to be reading something, aren't I? Why do I get the feeling you're stalling?"

She handed him the legal pad she'd been writing on. "I'm not, actually. I kind of like this one."

He took another sip of his coffee and then put it down so that he could read. "Good. I can't wait to read it. So I won't." As he began reading he was aware of her watching him, but blocked her out, focusing solely on the page.

_It was the first long night of my life, but definitely not the last. I was a junior in high school, and I had a lab report for chemistry due the next day. I hated chemistry and hadn't done well on some of the tests, and in order to keep a decent grade in the class, I had to do really well on this lab report. I'd meant to start it the night before, but I'd gone out with some of my friends and it hadn't happened._

_By one o'clock in the morning I was about halfway done, but I was beginning to doubt whether I'd be able to finish without falling asleep. I was actually starting to drift off at my desk when I heard my bedroom door open, which startled me awake._

_My mom must have walked past my room and saw that my light was on, because she was standing in the doorway. "Hey," she said softly, probably so she didn't wake my dad in the next room. "What are you doing up?"_

_"This lab report is due tomorrow," I told her, bracing for a lecture on waiting until the last minute._

_It didn't come. Instead, she put her hand on my shoulder, trying to guide me out of my chair._

_"No, I have to finish this," I protested._

_"Short break," she promised. "Clear your mind. Besides, you won't get anything done if you're falling asleep."_

_I saw the wisdom in that and followed her, but I took my chemistry notebook with me. She led me to the kitchen and pulled out one of the stools at the counter for me. I sat down, and she set a mug in front of me and one in front of the other stool. Then she got the coffee pot and poured us each a cup of fresh coffee._

_"I don't like coffee," I reminded her as I eyed my cup._

_She put the pot down and sat in the stool beside me. "Smell it," she instructed._

_I did._

_"Smells good, doesn't it?"_

_I nodded. "Yeah, I like the smell, I just don't like the taste."_

_She slid the cream and sugar that was already out on the counter between us. "Just try it. Fix it however you want. It'll help you focus. At least, it works for me."_

_Hesitantly, I put some cream and sugar into the cup and stirred it. "Why are you awake?" I asked._

_She yawned as she stirred her own coffee. "I have a trial tomorrow and I don't have a strong enough case yet. I'm doing research." She pointed to the large pile of papers in front of her._

_I nodded. "Do you do this a lot?"_

_"Not a lot, but sometimes."_

_I took a tiny sip of the coffee. It was better than I'd expected._

_My mom was watching me, and she laughed. "This is the only thing that'll get me through the day tomorrow," she said, gesturing at her own coffee._

_I sipped mine again, taking more this time. I didn't dislike it, and if it would help me stay awake to finish my lab report, I would drink it._

_I knew I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I couldn't help asking. "Why aren't you lecturing me? For waiting until the last minute?"_

_She shrugged. "Well, then I'd have to lecture myself for waiting until the last minute to lecture you, and that seems a little counter-intuitive. It's too late now, what's done is done. Just get it finished."_

_I appreciated that, and ended up finishing my lab report in the kitchen while my mom did her research, drinking coffee. When I went to bed around four, she was still up, and the next morning when I got up for school, she was already in the kitchen. I remember being impressed by her commitment, how she literally sacrificed her own sleep for her clients, people she barely knew. I didn't have anything that I was that passionate about yet, but I think it was that morning that finding it became my goal._

_I drank another cup of coffee that morning before school, and gradually it began to go from something I tolerated to something I actually enjoyed. To this day, every time I drink coffee, it reminds me a little of my mom._

When he finished reading he looked up at his muse, smiling. "You're right, it's good."

She smiled back. "Really?"

He nodded. "You know what I like best about it?"

She shrugged and shook her head.

"It's _so_ you."

* * *

><p><em>LONG chapter. I'm aware. I was going to edit it down... but when I read back through it I realized I liked it more than I thought I did, and I didn't really want to cut anything out. I really want to have a bit of Beckett's writing in every chapter, and that didn't come until the end here, and I also think establishing where their relationship is at the moment was pretty crucial as well. Anyway, in my time zone we still have five and a half long hours until Knockout, and if reading this helps you pass the time, so much the better. If you could return the favor by giving me some reviews to read while I wait... I would be eternally grateful. :)<em>

_As for the finale, because I can't not say something about it... I saw the promo but haven't watched the sneak peeks or read spoilers, so I'm mostly going to be surprised. I completely trust the writers, but I'm still nervous. *fandom group hug* It's not going to be easy. That I'm positive about. But we'll get through it, and we'll survive the long Castle-less months of the summer hiatus. [/pep talk that was partly for myself]_

_Anyway, yes, reviews will definitely help keep me calm and sane until Castle tonight, so if you want to help out with that... you're awesome. :)_


	3. Writer's Block

_Author's Note: For those of you who didn't read Her Diamonds, skip this paragraph, it'll just confuse you. For those of you who did, a little timeline clarification. When you write a story over a fairly long period of time and the show is actually airing during that period, things can start to get clouded, and my original timeline doesn't really make sense anymore. I started writing Her Diamonds in December, well before Knockdown aired, and had no idea when Johanna was killed, so I guessed and made it early spring, March-ish. The way I had it lined up in my head, the date when Her Diamonds takes place and this story begins was the eleventh anniversary of her murder. But since now we know that she was killed in January, for this to make sense it has to be the twelfth anniversary, so this takes place somewhere around the early middle of season 3. In order to make that work, the only things (I'm pretty sure) that need to change in Her Diamonds are the number of years since Johanna was killed and the fact that I said it was spring. So just ignore those. I might go back and actually change it eventually. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's fine, just ignore me, but little details like that bug me, and it mattered for this chapter because I mention the Old Haunt and I wanted to make sure that worked... which it does, because Last Call aired in December, and this would be January._

_Read, enjoy! I do have more to say, but I'll save it for the end. :) Hope you like!_

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 3<span>

Writer's Block

Kate Beckett was very good at keeping things on the down low. Her business was her business, and no one else's. She shared little with anyone but the people closest to her, and becoming one of those people took considerable time and effort.

Richard Castle had done it. He'd spent the time and the effort, and he'd found his way in. He knew more about her than most, maybe more about her than anyone. He'd seen parts of her that she'd thought no one ever would, parts that she'd thought she'd hoped no one would ever see. But now that he had, she wasn't sorry. It scared her a little, but she wasn't sorry.

It was nice, comforting in the most basic way possible, to have someone she trusted to confide in, someone with whom she could share every part of herself. Castle was someone she trusted. And the depth of her trust for him was what scared her the most.

Attraction was one thing. It was what most, if not all, of her past relationships had been based on, and there was nothing frightening, or even intimidating, about it. It was shallow, maybe, but it was easy, it was fun, and it never gotten her hurt, not really. When a relationship based on attraction ended, it was disappointing, sure. When she was younger and less experienced, less callous, maybe, it had even upset her. But with Castle, it was different.

With Castle, there had always been attraction, right from the very beginning. But when she'd first met him, he was such a pompous asshole that she'd had absolutely no interest in giving him the satisfaction of letting him know. She'd used her wiles to torture him a little, dangled the carrot in front of his nose, but right as he was going for it, she'd yanked it back, always making sure to keep him at arm's length.

So much had changed since then. Whether he had actually changed or she had just gotten to know him better, she wasn't sure, but she suspected that it was a little of both.

She did know him, she knew him pretty well, and he knew her pretty well, not completely, but probably better, now, then any other person did. She'd allowed him into her little bubble of personal space, both literally and figuratively, and it was okay. Her world hadn't imploded, hadn't collapsed from the force or mass of another person's entrance.

Instead, it seemed like Castle's presence had the opposite effect. Since she'd met him, really, her bubble had been expanding very gradually, and when they'd kissed it had opened a good-sized air pocket. Suddenly she felt like she had more space to move, more air to breathe. Sharing bits of her life with Castle was becoming a fragile kind of addiction. The more she shared the more she wanted to share, but she knew that if she shared too much, or the wrong piece at the wrong time, the bubble would either burst or swallow her whole. She wasn't sure which would be worse, but she knew she needed to guard against both.

The part of her life she'd most recently chosen to share with him was one of the most fragile, dangerous topics she could've picked, but it was also one she held closest to her heart. Her mother. It was a part of her life that Castle knew very little about because her death had been so many years before she'd known him. Especially after all he'd done for her, how understanding he'd been on her mourning day, the anniversary of her mother's murder, she wished that Castle could've met her mother. When he'd suggested that she start writing things down, the tipping point for her decision to do it had hinged on something he'd said: "_then maybe if you have kids one day… maybe they'd want to meet their grandmother."_ Thinking about his life and the way he thought, she understood why he'd said that. He had a daughter, and though he wasn't exactly the stereotypical responsible parent type, he tended to see things from a parent's perspective when she least expected it. But where she was in her life right now, children were the furthest thing from her mind. The idea that resonated with her was that, by reading what she'd write, someone who had never met Johanna might be able to get to know her a little. She wanted this. She wanted it for Castle.

He'd also told her she should do it for herself, to help herself remember, and this wasn't the least of her reasons. The thought of being able to commit her memories to paper, a fairly permanent format, was empowering. In a way, it was like backing up computer files. If her memories should fail or begin to fade, she'd have somewhere she could go to find them. But as she began to write, she found that it did more than that. It not only preserved her memories, it clarified them. It brought back details she hadn't realized she'd noticed, much less remembered, and allowed her to put certain scenes and ideas in a kind of perspective that she never had before.

Besides that, it wasn't like her yearning for Castle to get to know her mother was completely, or even remotely, unselfish. It only seemed fair. She'd met his mother, and now it was time for him to get to know hers. Traditionally, "meeting the parents" was something that happened in a romantic relationship at a far more advanced stage than where her relationship with Castle was right now, but again, she couldn't help but feel that Castle was different. She didn't know what they were to one another. They weren't exactly friends and they weren't exactly dating. Rather, it seemed like their relationship was an exception to every rule, and somehow that seemed right. That was what he was. He was her exception.

At this point though, she was starting to feel guilty. It had been more than three days since she'd written a single sentence. She'd been busy with work and so exhausted by the time she got home that writing was the last thing she wanted to think about doing. It was rewarding in its own way, but it was emotionally draining.

She wasn't sure if it made her feel better or worse that Castle hadn't so much as mentioned it. He knew how tough the case they'd been working was, how much time and energy she'd had to pour into it, and he'd put in every bit as much himself, just as he always did. In fact, it seemed that everything had gone completely back to normal, as if nothing had changed between them. She'd never begun this little writing project. He'd never spent almost an entire day at her apartment. They'd never kissed.

She hadn't intended this. She hadn't even wanted for it to happen, it just… had. When she'd gotten busy, it had been easy, effortless, to slip back into her routine, and that was what she'd done. What surprised her was that Castle hadn't called her out on it. He hadn't tried to pull her aside and make her look at things differently. He was giving her the reins, allowing her to go wherever she chose. Given his impatience just the other day, this didn't compute. She wondered whether he'd actually said anything to Martha and Alexis, like he'd said he was going to do. She'd been avoiding her end of the bargain, and hadn't talked to Lanie at all. Her vic's body had been assigned to Perlmutter, so it hadn't really been an issue. Her friend had tried to call, and more than once, but the one time she'd been able to find the motivation to call her back it had gone to voicemail, and she'd left a very brief message.

She felt more than a little guilty about all of this, and knew that now, since she'd solved her most recent case the night before and didn't have to be at work until later, she should probably give either Castle or Lanie a call. But instead, she sat on the couch where she'd done all of her writing so far, staring at the inside of the gorgeous notebook that Castle had given her, her mind every bit as blank as the page.

She'd successfully written two—what? Chapters? Excerpts? Blurbs? Scenes? None of these words seemed quite right, but whatever they were she'd written two of them, about her mother, and they'd both just sort of come to her. Well, actually, the second one had just sort of come to her. The first had been Castle's suggestion. The problem was, she'd been staring at the blank page for twenty minutes now, and nothing was coming. It wasn't that she didn't have any other memories of her mother, she did. Of course she did. But she couldn't seem to think of any that seemed right. Right to bother committing to paper, right to share with Castle… everything she thought of seemed so trivial.

As much as she liked the idea of doing her writing ahead of time, without Castle watching her every move, asking her why every time she stopped, reading her expressions, and then reading her actual writing before she was sure it was ready, and when she was sure it wasn't, today it wasn't working. And as comfortable as it was to drift back to the time when she and Castle had had a working friendship and nothing more, it was no longer the case. So she went into the other room where she'd left her cell phone, closed the message that told her she had a missed call from Lanie, and called Castle.

"Beckett, hey," he answered after only two rings, sounding a little surprised.

She skipped the greeting entirely and got immediately to the reason for her call. "What do you do when you're writer's blocked? Besides spinning weird stories about fleas with guns, because I doubt that'll help me much."

"Ah, writer's block," he said with a satisfied, diagnosing tone. "Is that why you've been avoiding me?"

"I haven't been avoiding you, I've been busy. You know that as well as anyone."

"But now you're not."

"No, I'm not. Well, I kind of am, I'm trying to write, I'm just not really getting anywhere."

"Meet me at The Old Haunt."

She rolled her eyes. His advice _would_ be to go to a bar. "Castle…"

"Hey, you don't seek the council of the master and then question him. Meet me there." He hung up.

She frowned at her phone, considered sticking her tongue out at it for a very juvenile second, but instead put it down and went to get ready to go out.

* * *

><p>By the time she got to Castle's bar she wasn't surprised to find that he was already there, seated at the booth beneath his picture. She raised her eyebrows, but smiled, actually pleased to see him. "Why does it not surprise me that you're sitting with… you?"<p>

He laughed. "You found me, didn't you? That was the goal."

She nodded and sat down, making a face that showed him she wasn't convinced.

"Plus I think it's super cool that there's a picture of me here."

She nodded again. "That's more like it."

He gestured to the largish purse she was carrying. "I trust you brought your supplies?"

In answer, she got out the notebook and pen he'd given her. "Not that I've really used them yet."

"Well, one cure for writer's block is a change of scenery. It's even better if you can find a place that really inspires you. This was mine for awhile. Doesn't mean it's yours, and I haven't written here in years, not even since I bought it, but it's definitely a change of scenery."

She nodded. "It is. But I still don't think I'm feeling particularly inspired."

"My guess is you're thinking too much. Don't think. Just write."

"I can't write without thinking about what I'm writing."

"Sure you can. Just put pen to paper and write down the first thing that comes to mind." She started to protest again, but he interrupted her, pointing at himself. "Master." He pointed to her. "Student. Do it. I'll go get us some drinks."

She wanted to make some kind of comment about how he was getting entirely too much joy from the whole "master" thing, but he was already getting up and she didn't have time. "No, I can't," she told him quickly. "I have to work in a couple hours."

He nodded. "Right. Coke?"

"Fine."

"There'd better be words on that page by the time I get back. I don't care if they make sense, but they'd better be words. _Write._"

She sighed, but decided to take his advice. She put her pen to the page and began writing.

_He's so frustrating. He just said "write." What the hell do I write? That was why I called him in the first place. I don't know. I'm supposed to be writing about my mom, but I can't think of anything. Not anything good enough. I want to do her memory justice, not just write "whatever comes to mind." And why hasn't he said anything about… well, at the risk of being cliché… "us"? If there even is an "us." Whatever we are right now. The last time we were alone together he was so anxious to keep moving, to start telling people about how our relationship was changing, to keep things headed for the "next level," whatever that means. Now he hasn't even mentioned it. I know I haven't exactly brought it up either, but I figured he would. I don't even know if he's said anything to Alexis or Martha yet… I wonder if he has?_

She looked up from her page for half a second and saw him walking back toward the table with two Cokes, smiling to see that she actually was writing. She wrapped up her paragraph with one final thought:

_Shit. He's going to want to read this, isn't he?_

"Hey, looks like you got some writing done," he said as he sat down and slid one of the glasses to her.

"Um, sort of," she mumbled. She felt her face start to heat up.

"No, you did, I can see that." He looked at her awkward expression and frowned. "What?"

She looked at the offending page and flipped to the next one. "Nothing."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad. Let's see."

"No!" she said, too quickly. She wanted to rip out the page and throw it away, but the way it was bound a page wouldn't rip out cleanly, and she didn't want to destroy the beauty that was this notebook by having a torn, jagged edge at the beginning. Although, she'd already done that with what she'd chosen to write.

As she would've expected if she'd been thinking at all, her insistence that Castle not see what she'd written made him all the more eager. "Just let me see it. If it's really as bad as you say, I'll help you fix it."

"It's not that," she said, clutching the notebook tightly. "It's… you said to write whatever came to mind. I did. It's writing, but it's not exactly on topic. You don't need to see it."

He was smiling. "Maybe I wouldn't if it weren't for the fact that you're so determined I don't. Now I need to know what it is. You know me, I need to solve the mystery. It'll kill me otherwise."

"You'll live."

"Beckett!" He was whining now. "Come on, let me see it! Or, at least tell me what it's about."

She shook her head.

"Fine, then I'll guess. It has to be something embarrassing. Is it… how hunky you think the bartender is?" He glanced over at the man tending the bar, who was at least sixty and overweight. "Oh. That would be embarrassing." He grinned. "Or… the location of the mysterious tattoo? Or what the tattoo actually is? Why would that be embarrassing? Maybe it's… a cartoon character. Spongebob Squarepants. You have a tattoo of Spongebob Squarepants on your—"

"Oh for God's sake, you can read it, just _shut up."_ She put her hand to her forehead as if his ramblings had caused her actual physical pain, which was far from the case. She was actually mildly amused, but it was annoying, and she knew he'd go on forever if she didn't stop him. She did find the idea that he was about to read what she'd written a little dizzying. She didn't actually give him the notebook but she did take her hands away, and he soon took it.

She forced herself to watch him as he read, part of her hoping he'd be as unresponsive as he was the last time he'd read her writing. But this wasn't the case. As soon as he began, he smiled broadly. "So it's about me," he said, meeting her eyes. "_That's_ why you didn't want me to see it." He went back to reading before she could respond, and continued to smile his way through the paragraph. Before he picked up his head, he actually laughed. "I especially like the ending."

Her face had to have been a deep red close to the color of the leather booth they were sitting in. "Well, you did."

He nodded. "I did. And… I did. By the way. I told both of them."

"Oh." She realized he was talking about Martha and Alexis. "What did they say?"

"They're excited. They want to have you over for dinner sometime. And my mom wants to cook, which means I'll have a huge mess to clean up after you leave, and you should eat before you come just in case. If you want to come, that is."

"Yeah." She nodded slowly. "Yeah, that could be fun. When?"

"I don't know. I'll keep you posted."

"Good. Do that."

"Lanie?"

She shook her head. "She keeps calling me, but I haven't talked to her yet. I will though, soon."

"What are you going to tell her?"

She thought about this for a second before arriving at her answer. "Everything."

He met her eyes. "_Everything_ everything?"

She shrugged. "Everything," she repeated.

"I thought you didn't really want anyone to know yet? Remember? You were afraid that if you told Lanie she'd tell Esposito, and then he'd tell Ryan—"

"I know," she interrupted him. "I know what I said. I'm just… not sure I agree anymore."

"You're not sure you agree… with yourself?"

"Right."

He raised an eyebrow. "You wanna fill in the blanks for me?"

"One, I trust Lanie. If I tell her not to say anything, she won't. And two, even if she does… so what? They're going to find out eventually anyway, right?"

He smiled. "That was always my view. But I'm glad you agree."

As she looked at the smiling man across the table from her, she flashed back to everything he'd done for her in the last week, how he'd taken care of her (Yes, that was exactly right, he'd _taken care of her. _The last time she'd really let someone do that… she couldn't even remember), how he hadn't pushed her, how he'd suggested the writing project and was helping her so much with it… granted, this particular instance had turned into a bit of a failure, but for the most part his advice had been helpful… But when she saw him there, actually looked at his face, she couldn't figure out why she'd been hesitating. Why she'd been so afraid. It was just Castle. Her Castle. Her writer. She was his muse and he was her… well, "master" was a bit strong, but mentor would work. She taught him about her career, and now he was teaching her about his. She'd tell him none of this, of course. His ego really didn't need any extra fodder, it was certainly inflated enough without it. But that wasn't to say she wouldn't grant him anything.

"Still small steps," she reminded him, "but we'll keep taking them. Okay?"

He nodded. "Perfect."

She consulted her phone for the time. "I have to go get ready for work. I'll see you at the precinct?"

"Of course. I'm sorry we didn't really get much accomplished."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't say that." She let him interpret that however he liked, but she meant it in more than one way. One, it had been a conversation they'd needed to have. Two, although he didn't know it, it had actually helped her writer's block. She knew what she was going to write next.

* * *

><p><em>I know I'm taking a long time with this story in general, and I'm sorry, but I do have a little bit of justification for that. One, these chapters are long! And two, I'm really attached to this story, and I'm taking my time and being all perfectionist-y with it, trying to make it come out as well as I can. This chapter seemed to have no problem with being written, but it didn't want to edit. I ended up changing less than I originally thought I was going to, but I think it worked, and finally it's done. :) So this chapter is a little different because you don't actually get to read one of Beckett's memories... but you do get some of her writing, so that's going to have to be good enough. There will be an actual memory in the next chapter, I promise.<em>

_Those of you who have noticed/guessed that a lot of Beckett and Castle's ideas about writing are actually mine... astute. :) You're not wrong, although I do still try to tailor it to the characters so it's not just literally me talking. As for this chapter, if you guessed that Beckett was writer's blocked because I was... yeah, true. :) I couldn't think of another memory for her to write about that seemed to fit, so I left it up to Beckett, and this is what "she" came up with. :) And anyway, when I think about it, it works. Especially as a first-time writer, she's not just going to be flooded with a ton of ideas out of nowhere. Hell, I've been writing for... six years? and that's not how it works for me. Sometimes you do get a lot of ideas, and sometimes there's a dry spell. So that's the essence of this chapter, basically, albeit probably WAY overthought. :) Also, although the writing is a major component of this story, it's not the only component, and I like that this chapter worked through some of the Casketty relationship issues as well._

_Anyway, I'm done blabbering now, I swear. Have I mentioned lately that I love reviews? No? Well, I'm mentioning it now. You're awesome just for reading this. :) Thanks so much._


	4. Perfection

**Chapter 4**

**Perfection**

She was going to be there in less than an hour, and he couldn't have been more excited.

It wasn't as if she'd never been to his apartment before. She had, and more than once, but it had always been for some specific, work-related reason. Mostly it had been to brainstorm about cases, with the exception of the time she'd stayed with him after her apartment had burnt down.

Tonight, though, there was no practical reason for her to be visiting him. She was coming simply to visit, to eat dinner, to spend time with him and his family. And everything had to be perfect.

"Alexis, where are those flowers?" He felt like his mind was in about thirty different places, and he couldn't seem to fully focus on anything in particular.

"You left them on the counter."

"Right. Can you put them in vases for me? One on the table, one on the coffee table, one in the kitchen?" He was sure his daughter was more adept at arranging flowers than he could ever be.

"Yeah." She abandoned her homework, although he was sure not for long, to go deal with the flowers.

He made his way over to the other side of the counter, where his mother was cooking, and hopefully not destroying, what was to be their dinner. "How's the food coming, Mom?"

Martha raised the spoon she was using from the pot threateningly. "The food is coming just fine. You go get ready, and stop worrying. I've successfully cooked meals before."

"You've also successfully murdered meals before," he muttered under his breath, meaning for Alexis to hear.

But it was Martha who responded. "Well, she's a homicide detective, dear. If I murder our dinner, she can arrest me. Go get ready."

"I am ready. The flowers and the food were the last two loose ends."

"Then go and relax. We have everything under control. Here." She put down her spoon, leaving it in the pot, poured a tall glass of the white wine she was drinking and handed it to her son.

As soon as he saw Martha put down the spoon he picked it up and began stirring, scared to death that she would let it burn. But after handing him the wine glass she smacked his hand and took the spoon back. "I told you I would cook, now let me cook. Get out."

He looked to his daughter for assistance, but she shook her head. "No, Gram's right. You're being ridiculous. We'll take care of everything. Go write or something."

"Some help you are," he muttered as he left the kitchen. But he took his daughter's suggestion and went to his study.

He opened his laptop and tried to type a little, because Alexis knew him well. Writing did relax him. It took him out of the moment and redirected his energy. This was one of the many reasons he was glad that Kate had started writing. She was always so focused, so absorbed in her cases. So tightly wound. If there was ever anyone who needed a mechanism of escape, it was Kate Beckett.

The more he wrote, and the more time he spent with his detective, the further apart Nikki Heat and Kate Beckett drifted. He'd always thought that the character and the inspiration would become one over time, but that wasn't at all what was happening. He was accustomed to his characters taking on their own lives as they developed further, but this was different.

It wasn't Nikki Heat who he couldn't control, it was Kate Beckett. As he discovered more facets of Kate Beckett, he found that Nikki Heat couldn't keep up. Try as she might, she couldn't manage to be as complex, as enigmatic, as her inspiration. An entirely separate matter was that occasionally he had to make up something about Nikki Heat, about her past or her interests, to make a storyline line up correctly. When he did this the details he created about Nikki never, literally never, ended up being true of Kate. As many times as she'd told him, he was finally beginning to believe it: Kate Beckett was not Nikki Heat.

He'd created Nikki Heat as a way into Kate Beckett's life, first in his own mind, and then in reality when he used Nikki as a reason to begin to shadow Kate. Now, for the first time, he used the fictional detective as a distraction from the real one. He buried himself in the life of Nikki Heat as he waited for Beckett, and by doing so made the wait a little more bearable.

* * *

><p>He was yanked out of his alternate consciousness by a tentative knock on the doorframe. He turned around, expecting to see his mother or Alexis, and was surprised when his intruder proved to be neither. "Hey, Beckett," he greeted her, "what are you doing here?"<p>

She raised an eyebrow. "You invited me?"

"No, I mean…" he let out a frustrated sigh and snapped his laptop closed. "_Here._ My mom or Alexis could've come and got me."

She smirked. "Am I not allowed in here or something?" She poked his novel-planning board as though attempting to be defiant.

"No, you're fine, it's just, I was writing, and I get in kind of a zone when I write and I would've preferred you not to have had to be the one to pull me out of it. But it's okay, I'm back now."

"They both said they didn't want to deal with you again until you knew I was here. Do you want to tell me what that was about?"

He was positive that he didn't. "Nope." He nodded her out of his office. "Come on. Let's see how dinner's coming."

She followed him back into the kitchen. "I, um," she began as he closed the door, "I got some more writing done, and I brought it with me. I thought maybe you could look at it later."

He stopped in his tracks. "Really?" He hadn't expected this for a couple different reasons. For one, the last time they'd spoken she hadn't had any idea what she was going to write about next, and it hadn't seemed like their little meeting at the Old Haunt had done anything to change that. And tonight, he hadn't really been thinking about editing. Not that what he'd been doing with Kate's writing really qualified as editing. It wasn't that it was perfect, it wasn't. He planned on helping her to improve it eventually. For now though, what she needed was confidence, and that was what he'd been trying to give her.

"Yeah. I just finished it last night."

"Good, I'd love to read it." He smiled. "Come on."

"Oh good, you found him," Martha greeted Kate when they reemerged in the kitchen. "Sit down, you two. Everything's ready."

"Already?" Castle asked, confused.

"What do you mean 'already'?" Martha rolled her eyes. "Sit."

Castle nodded and led Kate to the seldom-used dining room. "She's been working on this for awhile. Should be interesting to see if it's any good."

"What is it?" Kate asked as she took a seat beside Castle.

"Chicken Alfredo," Martha said as she appeared behind them and put a serving dish on the table. "And it certainly should be good. It's the secret recipe of a five-star chef I once… dated. It was his specialty."

Kate smiled, innocently missing what Martha had been trying to say. "Wow, you must have been pretty close for him to give you his recipe. How long did you date?"

Martha smirked. "One night."

Beckett tried to nod casually, but Castle didn't miss her blush, and even given his knack for words he couldn't have begun to express how endearing he found it. Most of the time she came across so callous. He loved it when she let her guard down, if even just for a moment.

Alexis slipped into the room and took a seat. "This better be good, Gram. Considering how long it took you."

Kate frowned. "I hope you didn't do any extra work on my account. I'm really not picky."

"Oh, nonsense," Martha said as she put a serving of pasta and chicken on Kate's plate. "You are a welcome change for this family. We're thrilled to have you."

She smiled. "I'm happy to be here. It's a change of pace for me too."

"Well, you're welcome any time." Martha sat down when she was finished serving everyone. "So, Richard tells us that the two of you are working on some kind of project together. Top secret police business, I assume?"

Castle looked at Beckett, waiting for her response. He hadn't been sure how much she wanted his family to know, so he'd given them only minimal information. Now he would find out whether he'd made the right decision.

"No, it's not work-related. Just something personal he's helping me with."

It looked as though he his decision had been correct.

But Martha's ear's seemed to prick up at the word Beckett had used. "Personal, huh? And he's helping?" She nodded at her son. "Very interesting."

"Mom," Castle warned. Maybe he was paranoid, or at least uncharacteristically concerned, but if anyone was going to mess up this new relationship, it was either going to be him or it was going to be Beckett. It was not going to be Martha.

But Kate smiled. "It's okay. He can tell you all about it when I leave. It's nothing secret, it's just personal, and I don't really want to talk about it now. I'm sure he can explain it better than I can anyway."

Castle gave her a questioning look. He could do that? She rolled her eyes at him and changed the subject. "So anyway. This is really good, Martha."

"Thank you, Kate. It is, isn't it? Looks like my five-star chef pulled through."

"Exactly how long ago did you know this chef?" Castle asked.

"He's not your father, if that's what you're asking."

Alexis laughed as Kate smiled and shook her head. Castle sputtered. "That's _not_ what I was asking. I'm just trying to figure out how you remembered the recipe."

"I'm an actress, darling, I have a fabulous memory. But it was a number of years ago. He wrote it down."

Castle still didn't get it. "And you still have it? _Years_ ago? I would've thought you'd have lost it by now."

The story wasn't lining up for Beckett either, but her reasons were different from Castle's. "A five-star chef wrote down his special secret recipe and gave it to you?"

Martha shot her son a glare but chose not to answer him, and instead turned to Beckett. "He was intoxicated at the time. I'm sure in your line of work you understand that can lead to certain… lapses in judgment."

Kate actually laughed. "Okay, no further questions."

Now Castle laughed. "Are you ever _not _a cop?"

"Rarely."

Castle was thrilled with how seamlessly Beckett seemed to fit in with his family. There was no awkwardness, no hesitation. She was just there. Like another member of the family. She even offered to help clean up when they were finished, but Martha quickly turned her down. "You're our guest," she insisted. "We'll take care of it."

"Well, then at least let me return the favor," she suggested. "You guys come to my place some time, and I'll cook."

"You don't have to do that," Castle insisted. "There are a lot more of us than there are of you."

She rolled her eyes. "There are three of you. I'm sure I can cook for four people. Come on, what do you say?"

Castle eyed the generous glass of wine that Martha had poured for the detective. "How much wine have you had?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Don't make me hurt you."

Alexis was the first one to actually reply seriously. "We'd love to, if you're sure you don't mind. Sounds like fun."

Kate smiled. "I'm positive that I don't mind. I wouldn't have suggested it if I did. Your dad and I will figure out when."

Castle nodded and then turned to Beckett. "Shall we go work on your 'project' now?"

"Yeah, sure." She smiled at Alexis and Martha and led the way to Castle's study.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked as he closed the door. "Because you can still back out. My mom won't remember anyway. Alexis never forgets anything, but I can talk to her."

"Castle. I invited your family for dinner. What is the big deal?"

"You don't normally even cook for yourself, I just can't figure out why you'd want to cook for my whole family."

"I actually enjoy cooking, I just don't usually have time to do it, and I never feel like I have enough reason if it's just for me. I want to do this. Let me."

Her tone and expression told him that this was more a demand than a suggestion, and her insistence softened him. "I just don't want you feeling like you have to do this to pay us back or something. That's not how this works."

"I know it's not. That's not what I was thinking." She opened her purse and handed him the notebook he'd given her. "Here. It's the first thing in there that's not what you already read. Second page."

"Right. Okay." He took the notebook, sat down and flipped to the page. "We should get you a bookmark."

She rolled her eyes. "I have bookmarks, I just didn't think of using one. You don't have to be my benefactor all the time."

He liked being "her benefactor," as she'd said. It wasn't as if Kate was broke, that wasn't even remotely true. She had money. She made less than she deserved, but enough to live fairly comfortably considering she only had one person to support, and he'd figured out early on that she'd come from a family of means. It was just that she didn't have as much money as he did to toss around, and even if she did, she wouldn't have. She lived modestly. She didn't usually treat herself, indulge in luxuries just because she could. That was where he came in. He indulged her. First it had been the espresso machine at the precinct. Then the dress. The money aimed at catching her mother's killer, not that it had helped much. Recently it had been smaller things. The flowers. The notebook. He wasn't trying to woo her, he simply wanted to make her smile. "I know I don't have to," he told her. "I like to."

She looked a little frustrated, but smiled. "I know. Are you going to read or not?"

He nodded and began reading.

_When I was sixteen, I remember there was one night when my dad had to work late, so it was just me and my mom. That was rare. Usually my mom was the one who had to work late, or I was out with friends. I was at the age where I didn't really want to spend a lot of time at home, and when I was, my dad was usually there too._

_We ordered Chinese and talked a little, and then she asked me a question that caught me off guard. "What's wrong, Katie?"_

_My mom had this incredible knack for reading people. It was impossible to hide anything from her. But even then I wasn't really big on sharing, so I told her what I always told her. "Nothing."_

_"I'm your mother, Kate," she said with this warning look in her eye that she could have had patented. I was never sure whether she developed it as a mother or a lawyer. "Don't lie to me."_

_I was dating this guy named Zach at the time. He wasn't my first boyfriend, but I think he was my first serious one. We'd been dating for almost six months, but honestly, I was starting to lose interest, and I think he was too. He'd been spending a lot of his time with another girl, and he said they were just friends, but I wasn't sure I believed him. I told my mom all of this._

_Most of the time, my mom and I were a pretty typical mother and teenage daughter. We weren't always close, we didn't always talk to each other a lot, we didn't even always get along, but every time I started talking to my mom about something, really talking to her seriously, I ended up spilling absolutely everything. She had the ability to open me up in a way that no one else could. This day was a prime example. I went into detail about Zach, our relationship and how it had changed, and the other girl. We talked for at least an hour about boys, life, how she and my dad had met, really everything. I'll never forget it. To this day, I can still remember some of the advice she gave me._

_"Relationships take work," she said. "You'll never have a relationship that's perfect one hundred percent of the time. Don't look for someone who's perfect for you, because you'll never find him. No one is perfect, and no one is perfect for anyone else. What you look for is someone you're willing to work for. Someone who is worth the effort. But it also has to be someone you trust, because without trust, no matter how hard you work, you'll never really have anything."_

_After she died, I wasn't sure I'd ever trust anyone again. Not completely. But now? Now I see that I was wrong._

When he got to the last sentence, he froze. She couldn't have meant what he thought she meant by that. That was just his ego talking. Wasn't it?

His question was answered when he looked up from the page and saw her looking down, blushing. She was well aware of what he'd just read, and she had to have known what he was going to read into it. She had to have known that when she was writing it. And he hadn't asked to see this one, she'd shown it to him willingly. Egotistical or not, that could only mean one thing. His impression had been right. She'd been referring to him.

He put his hand on hers to let her know that he had finished, and she looked up tentatively. "Did you like it?" She immediately backpedaled, correcting her error in speech. "I mean, um, do you have a critique? Anything I should change?"

He smiled and took her hand in his. His reply was automatic. In retrospect it might've been a little cheesy, but it just kind of came out. "Don't ever change." Then he leaned toward her slowly until he could feel her breath and knew that she wasn't going to pull away. She wasn't going to stop him. He let his lips brush hers, and then softly he kissed her. The woman he was willing to work for, to do anything for. The woman he trusted completely, always. The woman he now knew felt exactly the same way that he did.

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><p><em>AN: Sorry about the wait. Have I mentioned before that I love this story? I do. It's a lot of work, so it tends to take me a little longer to update, but it's so worth it. At least, it's worth it on my end. Hopefully you agree. :) Unfortunately though, the chapters are long and kind of labor-intensive (long might not be unfortunate... you guys seem to like long chapters...), so it tends to take me awhile to write them (the unfortunate part)._

_I have lots of ideas/plans for this story, it's quite exciting. :) What I have to do next is actually turn them into a coherent outline that I can actually use. The outline I have now? Not coherent. I have to skim through like five pages of obscure notes, most of which wouldn't mean anything to anyone but me, and some of which don't even mean anything to me, to find anything actually helpful, and I have limited patience for that. So I need to fix that soon. I do want to get more into history/background and writing stuff soon, but this chapter and the last one were more about establishing Castle and Beckett's relationship and what exactly is going on there. Which is also fun. :)_

_One of the things I'm enjoying most about this story is the reviews I've been getting. No pressure intended. :) It's not that I've been getting tons of reviews for this story, I haven't, especially lately, but the ones I've gotten have all been amazing, really sweet and thorough. So thank you so much for that! :) I'm... extremely inconsistent with review replies. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. But whether I have or not, know that if you've reviewed, I find you awesome. :) Continue to do so please! If you haven't... I promise I don't bite? As always, thanks for reading! :)_


	5. Comfort

_A/N: I know this chapter is a little on the short side for this story, and I know it took me awhile to finish it... but at least it's done! Hope you like it!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**Comfort**

"So let me get this straight," Lanie asked from across the booth at Remy's, where they'd agreed to meet after work. "You and Castle?"

Kate bit her lip as she felt the smile spread across her face. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Look at you! Girl, I'm so happy for you! C'mere." Lanie stepped out of the small booth just far enough so that she could hug her friend without awkwardness, but then she sat back down and gave her a stern look. "How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know, since… Thursday?"

The M.E. raised her eyebrows. "Thursday as in the day you took off work?"

She smiled a little guiltily. "That's the one. It, um… it was the anniversary of my mom's death."

Lanie nodded. "I figured it had to be something like that. Sorry, sweetie."

She shook her head. "It's fine, I don't really need to… think about that right now. Anyway, Castle was just… he was really there for me. A hundred percent. And I just…" she shrugged. She couldn't explain it, not really. She couldn't give Castle the credit he deserved. Couldn't explain why, all of a sudden, being friends, even good friends, didn't seem like enough. He, writer that he was, might've been able to do it, but she didn't have the words. All she could do was smile sheepishly. But Lanie understood.

"Well, it's about time!" she said. "I'm just a little pissed off it took you this long to tell me. Thursday? Really?"

"Sorry, Lanie. It's just… we're not really telling anyone yet. He told his family and I'm telling you, but that's as far as we need it to get for right now."

"Well, why? If you're so happy, why keep it to yourself?"

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Come on. You of all people know it's not that simple. If I recall, you and Esposito never did tell us you were together. We had to figure it out for ourselves."

"Oh now, that was different."

She raised her eyebrows. "Was it?"

"Well… anyway, even if it wasn't, if you guys figured out that we were together, how do you and Castle expect to hide it? Do you really think the boys aren't gonna figure it out? And for that matter, do you really think I'm not gonna say something to Javi?"

"I do think you're not gonna tell him, and here's why. You're not gonna tell him because I'm asking you not to, and you're gonna respect that because you're my best friend, and because we've been friends for a lot longer than you and Javier have been dating."

Lanie sighed. "Fine, I won't say anything for now. But if he figures it out and asks me about it, I won't lie to him. Anyway, what are you afraid of?"

"What makes you think I'm afraid of anything? Maybe it's just not anyone else's business."

"Honey, this is Castle. He's a famous novelist. If you're with him, it's gonna be everybody's business. In the papers, tabloids, web sites—"

"Lanie," she stopped her friend quickly, trying not to look as panicked as she was beginning to feel. She wanted to continue to see her new relationship with Castle as a good thing. She wasn't ready to see the downsides crash in around her. Not just yet.

"Sorry, I'm not trying to freak you out, but I don't want you to be blindsided either. I know you know all this, but you stop thinking about it for a second and then you open a newspaper and your face is all over page six."

"I know, I know. And honestly I think that's part of why I don't want everyone to know yet. I'm not ready for that."

"Will you ever be ready for that?"

She smiled, seeing Lanie's point. "No, probably not. But I… think he's worth it. I'd just like to kind of get through the beginning stages and make sure it's gonna stick before we go telling everyone we know."

Lanie frowned. "Make sure it's gonna stick… so you're not sure it will?"

"No, it's not that, it's just…" she shrugged. "Well, maybe. There are just so many ways it could go wrong. He could do something stupid, _I_ could do something stupid, and then there's the fact that we work together that complicates everything…"

"Honey, honey," Lanie soothed. "Do me a favor."

She arched an eyebrow at her friend but nodded.

"Relax. New relationships are supposed to be fun, not stressful. I can tell you're happy. And you know how I can tell?"

She shrugged.

"Because I'm your best friend. And because every time I say his name, you smile like a junior high school girl."

Kate felt herself grin.

"Yeah, somethin' like that. Sweetie, stop worrying. Just let yourself be happy. You deserve it."

She nodded.

"I am glad you told me, and I won't say anything to anyone. Not even Javi. You can take your time."

"Thanks, Lanie."

"But don't take too much time, okay? We have a pool going over at the precinct, and I need to collect my winnings."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Lanie!"

"What? Come on. Tell me you didn't know about that. You must've at least guessed."

"I thought you were kidding!"

Lanie smirked. "Nah. Anyway, I'm glad you're okay. Not that I was worried. A little at first, but once you were back at work I was pretty much just pissed off at you for not calling me back."

Beckett suppressed a chuckle. "I'm sorry. I should've called you earlier."

"Damn right, you should've. I knew _something_ had to have happened between you and Castle. You should've seen him that morning. _Panicked._ I knew he wasn't going to stop trying until he found you, and then I don't hear a word from either one of you for almost a week? I'm not stupid. But I didn't know it would be this… I'm really happy for you, girl."

"I went to his place for dinner last night."

Lanie raised her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yeah, Martha cooked… it was good, despite Castle's warnings..." She was just talking, making random conversation, but when she saw her friend's face, she stopped. "Lanie, why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't know, you went to dinner at his house? With his family? It's just… fast. How'd it go?"

She shrugged. "It went fine, but you know, I already know his family. It's not like I was meeting them for the first time. Why… do you think it's too fast?"

"No," Lanie said firmly. "Not too fast, not with Castle. You're right, it's different. You already know him, you already know his family…" Lanie smiled. "This is gonna be good for you."

"I invited them over for dinner at my place," she said quickly. "I don't know when yet, but they're coming."

Lanie frowned. "All of them?"

"There's three of them, plus me. I can make dinner for four people, how hard can it be?"

"Wait, now… _you're_ gonna cook?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I am. I _can_ cook, I don't know why everyone assumes I can't."

"Maybe because you don't."

"I don't usually have the time or the reason to do it. But I _can_ do it. I _like_ to do it."

Lanie threw up her hands, aware that it was useless to argue with her friend right now. "I'm sure you can. Call me if you need anything though, okay?"

She grinned playfully. "_You_ can't cook, I don't know what good you're gonna do."

Lanie smiled as well. "You do have a point. But not just about that. In general."

She nodded. "Sorry it took me so long to call you back. I've just… had a lot going on." She'd now told her friend about everything new in her life but the writing, and that she had no intention of telling her, or anyone. She could think of no reason that she should.

"It's okay. We should all go out sometime. All four of us, me and Javi and you and Castle, like a double date. Once you tell everyone, of course."

Beckett smiled. "That would be fun. Yeah, we'll do it sometime." She spotted a waiter and flagged him down. "Let's order, I'm starving."

When she got back to her apartment, Kate sat down on her couch with her pretty leather notebook. She'd written enough in it now that she was actually beginning to think of it as _her_ notebook, rather than the notebook that Castle had given her. It might've overwhelmed her at first, but she was actually growing attached to it.

She was trying to get into the habit, now, of writing a little bit every night. She didn't always stick to that, but she was trying. It felt good, being able to incorporate her memories of her mother into her day to day life without pain. It used to be she tried not to think much about her from one moment to the next, and when something came up that reminded her of her, it felt like a knife to the gut. Now though, that was less the case. By making an effort to think about Johanna each day, and carefully selecting memories that didn't hurt, she found she was able to remember the good things without immediately associating them with the bad.

Her forays into the past were also a nice way to put the stress of the workday behind her, if only for a little while. It was a nice distraction. A catharsis. Something she would never have admitted to needing, and maybe something she didn't exactly _need_, but something that was comforting, nonetheless. Comfort was something she was just beginning to learn to live with. She'd always previously seen accepting comfort as a sign of weakness, but Castle was helping her to see it differently. Sometimes being comforted was just… comfortable. And there was nothing weak about being comfortable. There was nothing weak about being happy.

She opened to her page using her ornate metal bookmark, the one that had once belonged to her mother. The one she'd had in mind for this job ever since Castle had mentioned the word "bookmark," and ninety percent of the reason she'd been so insistent he not buy her one.

Finally, she was beginning to have less trouble figuring out what to write about. The more she wrote, the more she wanted to write, and the easier it was to come up with things to say. Moments to capture. And so she began the evening's reminiscence.

_Every Sunday when I was growing up began the same way. I woke up to the scents of coffee, bacon, eggs, and a hot griddle, and I rolled out of bed and met my parents in the kitchen, where my dad would be sitting at the table with a newspaper and my mom would be standing by the stove making breakfast. "Morning, Katie," she'd say. She'd ask me what I wanted for breakfast, and I'd sit down with my dad and we'd all talk a little while she cooked, and then we'd eat._

_My whole childhood wasn't this cliché. It was only Sunday mornings. Most other mornings my mom was either gone before I was up or still asleep after working late the night before, and my dad and I would grab a Pop-Tart or a bowl of cereal before heading off to school and work. During the week we were all busy, and we tended to go in three separate directions most of the time. But on Sunday mornings, for a couple hours, mine was pretty close to a stereotypical 1950s sitcom family. And I always liked that._

She smiled, satisfied that she'd written something. It was short and it wasn't earth shattering, but it was something. It was a memory, and it was a big part of her past, and it was something she wouldn't have wanted to forget. She'd show Castle tomorrow. For tonight, her work was done.

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><p><em>Unrelated side note: I think there's something funky going on with my alerts. So if you're supposed to be getting alerts for this story (or any of my other stories) and you're not... could you let me know so that I can figure out what to do about it, if there even is anything I can do about it?<em>

_Also. I do have some specific things in mind for this story, as far as what's eventually going to happen and where it's going to go, but in the meantime if you have any ideas for scenes you'd like to see Beckett write about dealing with her mom... feel free to toss them at me. Review, PM, Tumblr (.com/), anywhere you can find me is fine. :) I can't promise I'll use it, but I like the idea of having more ideas to work with (I do occasionally keep blanking on that, although I'm trying not to let it slow me down too much...), and I like the idea of letting my awesome reviewers give me input. So feel free, or not. It's up to you. :)_


	6. Digging

_A/N: At long last, a new chapter! I know it took me forever, but in my defense, it's quite long. It's not technically part of this chapter, but because it's been so long I'll copy in the last bit that Kate wrote at the beginning of this one because it opens with them talking about it, so this way if you want a refresher, you don't have to go back to the last chapter. Enjoy!_

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><p><em>Every Sunday when I was growing up began the same way. I woke up to the scents of coffee, bacon, eggs, and a hot griddle, and I rolled out of bed and met my parents in the kitchen, where my dad would be sitting at the table with a newspaper and my mom would be standing by the stove making breakfast. "Morning, Katie," she'd say. She'd ask me what I wanted for breakfast, and I'd sit down with my dad and we'd all talk a little while she cooked, and then we'd eat.<em>

_My whole childhood wasn't this cliché. It was only Sunday mornings. Most other mornings my mom was either gone before I was up or still asleep after working late the night before, and my dad and I would grab a Pop-Tart or a bowl of cereal before heading off to school and work. During the week we were all busy, and we tended to go in three separate directions most of the time. But on Sunday mornings, for a couple hours, mine was pretty close to a stereotypical 1950s sitcom family. And I always liked that._

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><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**Digging**

He'd finished reading. Actually, he'd been finished reading for a few minutes now. The last piece she'd written was actually quite short. He knew he couldn't sit there on her couch pretending to still be reading it for much longer, but if he let her know he was done he'd have to give her his feedback, and she wasn't going to take it well.

But apparently he hesitated a moment too long, because she figured out that he was stalling. "Okay," she said, "why do you hate it?" Her tone was teasing, but her eyes weren't. In her eyes was exactly the emotion he'd been hoping to avoid. Just the slightest tinge of hurt.

"I don't hate it," he said quickly.

"Well, I know it didn't take you this long to read it, which means you're stalling, probably because you don't want to tell me something. What is it? I thought this one was okay."

"It is okay. It's fine." Why couldn't he just tell her? Maybe because she seemed to finally be getting comfortable with the idea of writing and he was about to knock her down a peg or two. He couldn't do it. He didn't want to do it. But he had to do it. He was supposed to be helping her, not coddling her. Kate Beckett had no patience for being coddled. It was a surefire way to lose her. He couldn't let that happen. And anyway, she could tell something was wrong.

"Fine?" She rolled her eyes. "Just tell me, Castle. I can take it."

"I know." He nodded. "I know you can. But it isn't bad, it's just… it feels rushed."

She frowned. "Rushed?"

"Like, maybe you were just trying to write it to write it. To get it done. Trust me, I know the feeling, but that's not how good writing needs to work."

She shook her head. "That's not what I was doing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean… it's not like I _have _to write these."

He smiled, but nodded. "I know you don't."

"I'm doing them for myself. I can write as many or as few as I want. And I don't always have to show them to you."

"I know you don't," he repeated.

"I only show them to you as a courtesy."

Now he smiled. "A courtesy, huh? So you assume that I like reading them? That I wait with bated breath for you to tell me you have more?"

She blushed. "I didn't say that…"

He shrugged. "Because that would be pretty arrogant."

Her blush deepened. "I didn't mean—"

He interrupted her. "Although that wouldn't make it any less true." He grinned.

She bit her lip in an entirely unsuccessful effort to stop herself from grinning back. But it wasn't long before she came back to earth and her grin fell. "You didn't like it, though. The last one."

He frowned and quickly shook his head. "No, that's not true. It's not that I didn't like it. I did. It's… you know. More of your past that I wouldn't know if you hadn't chosen to share it with me, and I love that. And I know it's obviously something important to you if you chose to write about it, I just… I know you. I've seen your work, and I know what you're capable of. This is great, I just think you could've done it better. That's all."

"Well… how?"

"You tell me." He handed the notebook back to her. "The purpose of this is to help you remember, right? You read this and tell me what you remember. What the writing helps you to picture that wasn't already in your head."

She took it with a sigh, a little frustrated with the exercise, but began reading. "I can… I can remember the way the food smelled."

He nodded. "Good. Yeah, I agree. That part was good."

She turned back to the page and pointed at it. "And the sound of her voice there. I can hear it."

He smiled. "Great. That's the dialogue. Dialogue's good."

She looked at him. "I just can't always remember specific things that were said."

He shrugged. "It's okay to make it up to some extent, as long as it's close. Sometimes just having that little bit of specificity in there makes the whole thing flow better, and that makes it easier to form a picture."

She eyed him like he'd suddenly grown a third head. "I don't want to _make it up._ I'm not you."

He threw up his hands. "Another argument for another time. Just keep reading."

She looked back at the page and then shrugged. "That's it, I guess. That's all I can picture."

He smiled. "That's because after that point you get really general. This was something that happened every week, right?"

She nodded.

"Well that's fine, but you don't have to write about it all at once. Smaller pieces are better because you can be more specific. Maybe narrow it to just one week."

She stared at the page for a few seconds and then shook her head. "It was a long time ago, Castle. And it was… just a normal occurrence. I can't remember one specific week."

"Try."

"No! You don't think I'm trying? I _wish_ I could remember, but I _can't._ Twelve years is a long time, Castle, and most of this stuff happened longer ago than that. There are some memories that are gone. Just gone."

His heart sank rapidly. He'd been paying too much attention to the writing, the work, the task at hand, and not enough attention to her. He'd seen her frustration but had thought he could push her through it, and he hadn't noticed the moment when it turned to pain. Now her beautiful eyes were brimming with tears, and it was his fault. He'd pushed too hard.

He'd coached new writers before, but this, he reminded himself, was different. Her goal was not to get published and become famous, but to create pieces of writing that would help her to vividly remember her mother. And because of the project and the goal, her situation was more fragile than most. It wasn't uncommon for writers to become attached to their work, but Kate's bond with hers was stronger than most. When he critiqued her writing, he was also critiquing her memories, her childhood, her mother. He had to remember to be careful.

After all, his situation was also fragile. He was still in the beginning stages of a very new kind of relationship with his muse, and if he did the wrong thing it would be easy for her to push him away. And that was something he did not want to happen. He'd worked hard, gone through a lot to get to where he was today, as had Kate. The last thing he wanted was to ruin all of that progress by saying or doing something stupid.

"I'm sorry," he said gently. _No contact,_ he reminded himself. He wanted to touch her shoulder or maybe hold her hand, but he could tell she wasn't in the frame of mind to allow that. No matter what their relationship, how much it grew, he knew it would never be okay for him to touch her when she was annoyed with him. It would never help, it would only irritate her more. This was simply a fact of Kate. So instead he reached out to her with his eyes.

This she accepted, and she met them for a second before she blinked the tears away. "It's okay," she said. "I know you're trying to help, but there are some things I just don't remember."

He sighed, because it hurt to see her lose hope. Physically hurt, somewhere deep within his chest. She must have seen this, because she took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. _It's okay,_ her eyes said, just as she had. _I'm okay. We're okay._

This was good, and for a second he thought about leaving tonight's writing lesson at that. But there was a very fine line between knowing when to stop and coddling. He didn't want to push its boundary, and he knew his role here. He was supposed to help. Helping her to improve her writing would help her to remember, he truly believed that. "I'll bet you remember more than you realize," he insisted. "The more you write, the more will come back. I can promise you that."

She seemed to deflate just a little, but she didn't let go of his hand or even loosen her grip. If anything, he could almost have sworn he felt it get the slightest bit tighter. "I can't…" she began, but then she took a breath and restarted. "Maybe if I had somewhere to start, that would be true. But I can't just manufacture a memory out of thin air because you want me to be more specific."

"That's not what I'm saying."

She sighed. "Then what _are_ you saying?"

"I'm saying… see that thing you're holding in your hand?"

She turned the pen he'd bought her between her fingers. "Yeah."

"What is it?"

She started to roll her eyes but stopped herself, closed them for a beat longer than a blink, and then opened them again and met his. "A pen," she said dryly.

"Yeah…" he said, looking at it. "It's a pen. Very good."

She frowned. "…thanks?"

"But I don't want you to think of it as a pen."

She rolled her eyes, not bothering to stop herself this time. "Oh, here we go. Okay, Castle. How would you prefer me to think of this object which is obviously a pen?"

"Think of it," he said, flat-out ignoring her obvious patronizing, "as a shovel."

"A shovel," she repeated, still turning the object in her hand. "Okay fine, I'll bite. Why?"

"Because when you write, you're not just writing. You're digging, deeper and deeper into the story. Or in your case, deeper and deeper into your memory."

But she was still skeptical. "Wouldn't that tear the paper?" she asked with a smirk.

"Oh, that's very good," he said, smiling. He was glad that, if nothing else, he'd managed to cheer her up again. "Joke all you want, but I'm not wrong. This?" he tapped the page of the notebook, which she still held, open. "This is good, but you're just scratching the surface. I'd like to see you break through a couple of layers. See what's underneath. That's all I'm saying."

"A shovel," she said again skeptically, looking at her pen.

"It's a metaphor," he said. "Just go with it."

"Okay," she sighed. "Dig into it? Like, take what's there, and just go deeper?"

Castle smiled. Finally she was getting it. "Exactly."

"Deeper… doesn't necessarily have to mean more specific though, does it?"

He frowned, but slowly nodded. "No, you're right. That was just a suggestion. It's your piece, if you have an idea that you like better, go with that."

"Okay." She slowly released her grip on his hand and then finally let it go. "I think I have an idea."

He smiled, because he really believed that this was good for her. "See? Go for it. I'm sure it'll be great."

She nodded and began writing, focused intently on the page. It seemed like as good a time as any to start cleaning up the remnants of their dinner so she wouldn't have to do it later, so he picked up a few of the takeout containers and brought them into her kitchen.

He washed the dishes they'd used that weren't disposable and managed to find places for the uneaten food in her fridge. When he'd done all of this and he thought he'd given her enough time to write without it feeling like he was watching her, he went back into the living room.

He'd left a calm, confident Beckett, ready to begin writing again. But when he returned, the notebook was closed on the coffee table and she was backed as far away from it as possible on the couch, face wet and eyes red.

"Hey, hey, hey," he heard himself say, a reaction without any actual thought behind it. "What happened? You were fine a minute ago."

"I, um," she sighed, "I dug too deep."

"Ohh-kay…" He sat down close beside her and put his arm around her. "Shh-shh," he soothed. "It's okay. I'm right here. You're okay."

She took his hand and held it tightly once again. It wasn't long before her breathing slowed and the tears stopped coming. "Ugh," she finally sniffed. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" He ran his hand up and down her arm. "Don't be sorry. It's my fault. I pushed you."

"No, I should've known to stop. I just kind of… got caught up in it."

"You know I'm gonna have to read it, right?"

She nodded. "You can." But she didn't let go of his hand.

It was now for the first time that he noticed she wasn't just holding his hand for comfort. She was clutching it like some kind of lifeline, like she was hanging from a window and his hand was the only thing stopping her from falling to her doom. It wasn't as if he minded holding her hand, but this worried him a little. "Kate," he began with a soft frown. He nodded at their hands, an unspoken question in his eyes.

"Oh," she realized, letting go. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine, it's just… I don't get it. What's wrong?"

She sighed, and then handed him the notebook without opening it. "Just read."

He flipped open to the page she'd last marked. "I like the bookmark."

She smiled a little. "It was my mom's."

"Ah." That explained why she'd been so insistent that he not buy her a new one. It was better this way. Fitting.

He found the entry he'd read earlier, found the two paragraphs she'd added to the end, and began reading.

_Something about it just made me feel safe. Whatever happened, whatever was going on in my life, I knew that every Sunday morning when I walked into the kitchen, I'd find my mom standing at the counter in her jeans, which she only ever wore on weekends, her hair twisted into a bun, and my dad at the table with his newspaper, which he'd put down as soon as he saw me. It was our little tradition. It tied us together as a family. Even if it was only once a week and only for an hour or two, we were all together, all on the same page. And once a week for an hour or two, I felt like I was a part of something so strong that it could never be broken._

He stopped and smiled when he got to the end of the first paragraph she'd added. "This is perfect. I don't understand why you're so upset."

She shook her head. "You haven't read the last paragraph yet. Keep going."

He nodded and went on.

_I was wrong. Nothing is that strong. Everything can be broken. I'll never forget that first Sunday after she was killed. The usual Sunday morning smells didn't greet me in my bed, but still I went straight to the kitchen, and part of me expected to see her there cooking, just like always. Of course she wasn't. That was the moment when it really hit me that she was gone._

He felt his heart break a little more with every word he read, and by the time he finished the paragraph _he_ wanted to cry. But of course he didn't. "My God, Kate," he said instead. "Why did you write this?"

She shrugged. "It just… came. The bad memories are never very far from the good, and sometimes… it's hard to separate them."

On a hunch he held out his hand for her, and she accepted it gratefully, holding on like she had been before. "You can, though," he told her. "Separate them. I know you can. If you would've just stopped writing at the end of that first paragraph…"

"What? Then everything would be perfect? It's all part of my memory, and I'm supposed to be recording it, not altering it."

He shook his head. "You're supposed to be recording the details about your mother, the things you want to remember. Not every devastating moment surrounding her death. You remember enough of that. Don't write it down."

"But then… it's like I'm not telling the whole story."

"Yeah you are, it's just a different story. You're telling the story of your mother's life. Not yours. Not her death. Her life. And anyway, this isn't true."

She frowned. "What's not true?"

"There are things that can't be broken."

She looked very tired. "Like what?"

"Love," he said simply. But she was still looking at him skeptically, so he continued. "Your love for your mom. Your dad's love for you. None of that changed. And you're still part of a family. It might be a different dynamic now, but it's still a family."

She shook her head. "It's completely different."

For the first time, he wondered if maybe there was a reason she seemed to be gravitating more toward his family lately. Maybe those little things, like having meals together, reminded her of a part of her past that she missed the most. And suddenly, he was completely onboard with the idea that she'd invited them over. Maybe it wouldn't be putting her out after all. Maybe it was exactly what she needed. And with that thought, he changed the subject. "Do you still want to have us over for dinner some night?"

She took a beat to answer, thrown off by the sudden change, but caught up quickly and seemed relieved. "Yeah, definitely."

"When?"

"Oh… I don't know. When would be good for you? You have more schedules to coordinate than I do."

"But yours is the least flexible. You pick a day, we'll make it work."

"Okay… how about this Saturday? I don't have to work, so I'll have plenty of time to get ready."

He nodded. "Sounds perfect to me. We'll be there."

She smiled. "Good." Her smiled faded when she glanced back at the notebook he was still holding on his lap. "So… what do we do about…?"

"Oh. Right. Do you have scissors?"

She frowned. "Yeah?"

"Get them."

Although somewhat reluctantly, she left the room and reemerged with scissors. "What are you going to do with them?" she wanted to know before she handed them over.

"Just trust me."

She rolled her eyes and gave them to him. He immediately took them and began cutting a straight line down the bottom of the last page she'd written on.

"Castle, what are you doing? You're gonna mess it up."

"No, I'm gonna fix it. This paragraph isn't part of your project. It has nothing to do with what you're supposed to be writing about. And there's nothing written on the other side of the page yet, so we'll just get rid of it." He finished cutting it out and looked at her, triumphant, before getting up and heading for her kitchen. "Now. Do you have matches?"

Her expression was horrified and her response was immediate. "No! Castle, you are not setting that on fire here!"

"Why not?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't you remember what happened to my _last_ apartment? I'd rather not repeat that."

"I can promise you that nothing will explode. We'll do it over the sink, it'll be fine."

She got in front of him and stopped before he could get to the kitchen, barely two inches of space separating them. "There will be no fire." No trace of a smile crossed her lips. She'd put her foot down on his big plan. "Just throw it away. I know it's not as dramatic as you'd like, but it'll work, I promise."

But this, he wouldn't have. "No way. There's nothing poetic about throwing it away. You need more closure than that, to know that it no longer exists, not anywhere."

"Oh, is that what I need?" she asked him, her tone deeply sarcastic.

"Yes. I think it is." He folded the paper in half and slipped it into his pocket. "I'll keep it, and the next time you're at my loft we'll burn it in the fireplace. Nice and safe."

Apparently she saw that she wasn't going to win this argument, so she started a new one. "Why can't I keep it until then?"

"Because I don't want you reading it."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know, but I can picture it, and I'm not okay with that picture. Anyway, if you're not going to read it anyway, what difference does it make if I take it?"

"Fine," she sighed. "Take it. It's getting late, you probably have to go, right?"

He looked at his phone. It was after nine already. "Probably should. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, you will."

He started toward the door, but she stopped him. "Wait."

He turned back to her with a frown. "What?"

"Come here."

"I haven't… gone anywhere yet."

She rolled her eyes. "No, I mean come _here._" She took a step toward him.

He did the same, still a little confused. "I thought I was leaving."

She took another step, until it wasn't possible for them to get much closer, reached up a little, and lightly kissed his lips.

All traces of confusion vanished and he kissed her back, allowing his lips to linger on hers until she gently pushed him away.

"Always trying to one-up me, aren't you?" she asked him playfully.

"That's because you're such a tease." He kissed her again. "I always want more than you give me the first time around."

"Ever think I might do that on purpose?"

He took half a step back, not enough to put any real distance between them, but enough to get his point across. "Why Kate Beckett, I would never accuse you of doing such a thing!" He closed the small space he'd put between them once again. "I'm impressed." He kissed her once more. "It doesn't really matter, though," he said. "No matter how much you give me, I'll always want more."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "From me, I hope," she teased.

He nodded, but without a smile, because as far as he was concerned, it wasn't a funny question. "Only from you."

* * *

><p><em>There's a lot in this chapter (plus it's long...), so I'm not going to say much because I want it to speak for itself. I'll keep it simple. Please review, and thanks for reading! :)<em>


	7. A Night to Remember

_A/N: I'm feeling like the author's notes are going to be long tonight. I'm just in that kind of a mood. I want to talk to you, my loverly readers. :) If this annoys you for whatever reason, feel free to skip through the fairly obvious italics at the beginning and end of the chapter and just read the part in the middle. Don't skip through the italics that are actually IN the chapter though. :) If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll realize that those parts are rather important._

_So my first thing that I want to point out even though there's no actual reason for me to point it out? I love the number seven. It's my favorite number. And I have a very screwy reason why it's my favorite number. I think it's cool that it's the only one digit number that has two syllables. Besides zero, which totally doesn't count. But the universe seems cool with the fact that it's my favorite number, because everything with a seven in it tends to work out well for me. For example? On most of the CDs I own (which is more than most people... I kind of collect them, even though I mostly listen to music on my laptop or iPod), track number 7 ends up being my favorite, although I usually don't realize that's what number it is until much later. And this chapter? Chapter number seven of my favorite story to date? (Which... okay, this is getting a bit creepy. This is the seventh story I've written for Castle.) Anyway, I think this chapter turned out really well. I like it, and I hope you will too. :)_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**A Night to Remember**

She woke up hit with a wave of inspiration, and the first thing she could think to do was get out her notebook. After she made coffee, of course.

She'd gotten out of the habit of writing every night after her last piece of writing, because she realized that Castle was right. While writing did help her to wind down after a day of work, it had started to become work itself, and that wasn't the idea. Actually, she hadn't written anything at all in the past couple of days. More than once she considered giving up entirely, but she really didn't want to do that. The truth, though, was that she was a little afraid. Afraid that she would once again go too deep, that she'd dig herself so far into the pit that she wouldn't be able to climb back out. With Castle around she was less afraid, because he was such a solid tether to her present that she knew wouldn't allow her to get stuck in the past, but she also didn't want to get into a pattern where she would only write with him beside her. That was a level of dependence that she was not, and would never be, comfortable with.

But when she woke that morning with her idea, she knew it would be okay. This was not a piece that would trap her or cause her pain. It was simply a fun little reminiscence, and she actually found that she was excited to write it.

So, coffee mug in hand, she took her notebook and went to her usual writing spot, on her couch in front of the coffee table. Then she began to remember.

_My mom spent a lot of time in the kitchen when I was growing up. As a lawyer she often didn't have time, but she loved to cook, especially for her family. Sometimes she'd come home after a twelve or thirteen hour day and immediately start chopping or sautéing something. My dad could never quite come to terms with this. He was always offering to do it for her, or to order food so that she could relax, but she'd never let him. "This is how I relax," she'd say._

_When I was little, like most kids, I imagine, I always wanted to "help" my mom. She humored me at first, telling me to turn on the water in the sink for her or to help her stir when she was also holding the spoon and doing all of the actual stirring, but as I started to get a little older she began to actually let me help, teaching me how to do one thing at a time: measuring ingredients, chopping vegetables, until I had all the skills necessary to prepare most of her meals by myself. Not that I ever did. _

_Jokingly, my mom called me her sous chef. It was my job to help her, to do whatever she told me to do. I was the only one who was ever allowed to help her cook, always to the confusion of my dad. No matter how much he, or whatever polite houseguests we happened to have over, offered to help, they weren't allowed. Either my mom cooked with me, or she cooked alone._

_As I got older I was considerably less eager to help my mother cook, but whether I was willing to admit it or not, I was always proud of the fact that I was the only one allowed to share my mother's kitchen. Since her death I haven't cooked much, but I'm ready to try it again. It seems like a good way to honor her memory, for the right reasons and the right people._

As she wrote that last sentence she couldn't help but try to imagine what Castle would think or say when he read it, and she smiled.

* * *

><p>Her heart jumped a little when she heard her door. <em>They're here.<em> She turned down the heat under the sauce she was stirring and answered the door to greet her guests with a smile on her face. Her somewhat fake, polite smile broadened when she saw the three smiling Castles in her doorway. For a moment, she actually considered pinching herself. She'd never thought this day would come, that it even _could_ come. Castle was in the middle holding a bouquet of flowers, flanked on both sides by his mother and daughter. "You guys look great," she heard herself say. It wasn't quite what she meant, it was just the first thing that had come to mind. It was true, though, that they were a welcome sight.

Martha nudged her son impatiently and he looked at the flowers like he'd just noticed them. "Oh!" he said, handing her the bouquet. "These are for you."

"What is it with you and flowers?" she teased, remembering the last bouquet he'd bought her and wondering if these had come from the same place. But before he could answer she waved them inside. "Come on in, guys. Thanks for coming."

"Thank _you_ for having us," Martha said. "We could smell the food cooking all the way down the hall."

"Good smell, I hope?"

"Amazing," Alexis said.

"You three have a seat," she said, showing them her little seating area. "Can I get you something to drink? Castle, Martha, wine? Alexis… I think I have Coke? Water? Sorry, I don't have a whole lot of options."

"Water's fine, but I can get it."

"No, please, you guys sit down."

Alexis and Martha did, but Castle protested. "I'll help you with that."

She raised her eyebrows. "Castle, no. You're my guest too. Sit."

"Yeah, but I've been here before. I know where everything is."

"Sit," she repeated firmly.

He raised his hands in a mock-surrender and sat on the couch beside Alexis. Kate smiled, pleased that she'd won the first battle of the evening, although she was sure it wouldn't be the last, and went to put the flowers in a vase and pour the drinks.

"Get yourself one too," Castle insisted as she passed out glasses.

"I have one already, it's in the kitchen."

"So go get it and sit here with us for a little while. Relax. It smells like you've been cooking all day."

She shrugged. "I haven't, and if we actually want to eat tonight, I have to continue cooking until it's done."

"Fine, but at least let me help."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm doing this. It's my thing, and you're my guest."

Castle rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. But can I at least… watch?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Watch?"

"Yeah. We're all out here. If I'm in there with you, I can at least talk to you while you cook." He shrugged. "That way you won't get lonely."

She rolled her eyes, but smiled. "I'm positive I won't get lonely in my kitchen, but if you want to come in and keep me company, I won't stop you."

"Good." He nodded, pleased. He turned to his mother and daughter. "Girls? Remember, this isn't our house. Don't get too crazy. Alexis?" He looked at his daughter seriously. "Keep her under control."

Kate laughed and went back to her kitchen with Rick in tow, and then began the final preparations.

"So what's for dinner?" he asked as he took a seat on one of the two barstools at her small kitchen counter.

"Spaghetti and meatballs," she said, opening a box of pasta. "Not so fancy, but it was one of my mom's favorites. And anyway it's not complicated, and since I haven't really cooked in awhile…"

"No need to explain," he laughed, interrupting her. "Simple is fine. And if the smell is any indication, I'm sure it'll be delicious."

She nodded and began stirring the sauce. "So how's the writing coming?" he asked, she could've sworn a little nervously. "Have you done any more since the last time?" Now she was sure there was nervousness in his tone.

"A little," she said with a small nod and a smile that was meant to say she didn't blame him for anything.

He was visibly surprised. "Really? You have?"

She nodded. "I'll show you later."

"Only if you want to," he reminded her. "You don't have to show me."

She shrugged. "I do."

He smiled. "Okay. Later then."

"Later," she repeated.

* * *

><p>"Wow," Castle said as he tasted his spaghetti. "If my delicately trained palate is correct, which it almost always is, this sauce didn't come out of a jar."<p>

Kate smiled, rolling her eyes. "No it didn't."

"You made this from scratch?" Martha asked.

She shrugged and then nodded. "My mom's recipe. But this isn't as good as hers was."

"Some cook, your mother must have been."

"Yeah. She was."

A somewhat awkward silence, unlike anything that had occurred during the dinner at Castle's loft, descended over the group. To everyone's surprise, it was Alexis who broke it.

"So how was your day off?"she asked Kate directly.

She smiled. "It was… very enjoyable. I'm glad I got to do it."

"Mm, we're glad too," Castle mumbled, his mouth half stuffed full of food.

Kate laughed.

"Dad, slow down," Alexis scolded, although her tone was a bit mocking. "Or you're not gonna be glad when we get home and you're throwing up."

"Hah, like I'd do that," Castle said, but Kate missed neither the glare he threw his daughter nor the fact that he really did slow down.

"So, were you really cooking all day?" Alexis asked.

"Not _all_ day. Just for a few hours."

"A few _hours?_" Martha asked. "That's dedication, my girl."

She rolled her eyes, smiling. "I probably could've made the sauce last night, but I didn't really feel like it after work. Too tired. Which is part of the reason I don't cook much."

"You'll have leftovers from this for awhile, I'm sure," Martha pointed out.

She nodded. "I will. But please, don't hold back on my account. Eat as much as you want. That's why I made it."

But when she looked at Castle she noticed he'd stopped eating and was turned around, looking in the direction of the kitchen.

"Castle," she said, getting his attention. "What?"

He shook his head quickly. "Nothing. It's probably nothing."

"What?" she repeated.

"It's just, the food's great, but… it smells like something's burning."

Kate's eyes widened as she remembered what she'd forgotten, and she ran into the kitchen, cursing under her breath. With a potholder, she took out the smoking tray of well-blackened what had once been garlic bread and tossed it in the sink, not caring that most of it slid off the tray. She tried to brush it off as one not-so-important flaw in an otherwise successful evening, but she felt her heart sinking rapidly and she knew that she had to get out. Out of the kitchen. Away from the smell of burning bread, away from the three people who were suddenly behind her trying to help in one way or another, but were only succeeding in making her small kitchen feel very, very crowded.

"You guys finish eating," she managed to get out over the three of them, who were somehow all talking without saying anything she could clearly make out, not that she was trying very hard. "I'll be right back."

She figured they'd assume she was going to the bathroom or something, and realized that she didn't much care what they assumed. Instead she went into her bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed, taking a string of deep breaths in an effort to compose herself. But try as she might to convince herself the dinner was, for the most part, successful, her mind, incapable, it seemed, of leaving out pieces of evidence, kept pointing out the pieces that kept it from being so.

The whole feel of the evening was a little awkward, the conversation lagging, not nearly as lively and comfortable as it had been at Castle's. The food wasn't right. Castle's family was just being polite. No matter how much they insisted that it was delicious, she knew she'd left something out or done something wrong. It wasn't the same, wasn't as good, as it had been when her mother had made it. And she couldn't believe she'd forgotten the garlic bread. In fact, she hadn't merely forgotten it, she'd left it in the oven with the oven turned on. She couldn't tell if it was her imagination or the smoke was actually filling her apartment, but with every breath she took she felt as if the smell filled her nostrils all over again, and it wasn't helping matters at all.

She couldn't tell how long she was sitting there, but she knew she wasn't ready to go back out and rejoin her company yet. It might've been rude to be sitting here by herself ignoring them, but the thought of going back out there and trying to shrug off her failure, which still felt to her like a very big deal, would be worse. Far worse. It was too humiliating. She kept trying to talk herself down, to convince herself that none of the Castles would be horribly upset about the loss of the garlic bread, but somewhere within herself she realized that the reason she was upset had very little to do with garlic bread, and she found that she was stuck. She knew she couldn't stay here forever, but she also knew that she couldn't leave.

Eventually she heard a gentle knock on her bedroom door. _Castle_, her mind told her. But she didn't respond, didn't even move. Apparently she didn't have to, because within seconds the doorknob was turning. He appeared in the doorway, closed the door behind him, and then sat down beside her on the bed.

He didn't say anything for a long time. He didn't even look at her. He just sat there beside her, staring at the same wall she'd been staring at, not moving any more than she was.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, breaking the silence. "I probably shouldn't have left like that, I just… I couldn't…"

"It's okay," he said gently. "I understand." He offered her his hand, as was becoming a sort of custom between them.

She took it, curled her fingers around his, and, as always, was amazed at how grounded she felt. All her over-thinking about the evening and the dinner began to fade, to seem a bit less important, and the full reality of what she'd done hit her. "Oh God," she murmured, standing up. "Your family must think I'm horrible."

He shook his head and pulled her back down, as their hands were still connected. "They love you," he insisted. "They could never think that. They were a little worried, but I told them I'd make sure you were okay before I left." He paused for a long moment and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. When she didn't say anything, he asked softly, "Are you?"

Slowly, she began to nod. "Yeah," she said after a minute. "I am. I'd better go apologize…"

"They left," he said, interrupting her. "I sent them home."

"Why?" She dropped his hand and turned to him, irritated. "We hadn't finished eating yet."

"Kate, you've been in here almost half an hour. They finished, and I figured you probably didn't feel much like company anymore, so I sent them home."

"But we haven't even had dessert yet," she protested.

He looked at her, uncomprehending. "You made dessert?"

She blushed. "Just some brownies…"

He smiled. "You really went all out for this, didn't you?"

She rolled her eyes. "And a lot of good it did. Nothing turned out like it was supposed to."

"Oh, I don't know. I thought it was going pretty well for awhile there. And the food was certainly a hit."

"You guys are too polite," she said, waving him off. "It wasn't right, I messed something up."

He frowned. "I don't know what you were going for, but I can assure you that everything I ate was absolutely delicious."

She shrugged. "Thanks, but it still wasn't as good as my mom's."

"Well, that I don't know. But I can't imagine it being much better."

She smiled a very small smile. Suddenly she remembered something. She got up and went to her nightstand, pulled out the drawer and handed the notebook to Castle. "Read the last one," she instructed him. "It's marked."

He did, and she watched him. This time, whatever he did as he read, whatever he had to say afterward, she would be ready. But as he read, all he did was smile. But when he finished, he looked up and asked a question. "Was it?"

She frowned, not remembering exactly how she'd ended it. "Was it what?"

"For the right reasons and the right people?"

She considered this for a moment. "Yeah," she finally said. "I think so."

He nodded. "Good."

"So… what did you think?"

"I think you're beyond my help."

"What does _that _mean?"

"It means that you, Kate Beckett, are a great writer. I don't have anything more to tell you. Not about this piece, anyway. I wouldn't have you change it."

She half-smiled. "Thanks."

"This night meant a lot to you, didn't it?"

"Yeah," she said slowly. "It did."

"We'll try it again sometime?"

She smiled. "I'd like that. But maybe… not right away?"

He nodded, smiling as well. "I'll leave that up to you. Now, if I remember, I believe you said something about brownies?"

She laughed. "I guess we could still eat them, even if Martha and Alexis left."

"I'd hate to see them go to waste," Castle said, feigning concern.

"Okay, come on."

He followed her into the kitchen, where she got out two bowls. "Why do we need bowls to eat brownies?" he asked.

"Might as well do _something_ the way I planned," she replied. He was still confused, but didn't argue.

She put a brownie in each bowl and topped it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.

"Seriously?" Castle asked as she finished each with a spoon. "These aren't brownies, they're sundaes. But they do look incredible."

"Well, come on then. Take one." She took one of the bowls and led him to her couch where they sat down.

"I wish Alexis was still here," Castle said as he took his first bite. "She would've loved this."

"You think?"

He nodded. "Definitely."

"That's perfect, then. I still have a ton of this stuff, you guys should just come over sometime after work for ice cream."

Castle smiled. "Perfect. And it's way less pressure for you."

She shrugged. "Less pressure for everyone. But make it soon or the brownies will be stale."

He grinned. "Will do."

"So, how are you getting home if your family left?"

He shrugged. "Thought I'd take a cab."

She nodded. "Yeah. You could do that."

"I was… planning on it."

"Or you could just stay here for the night and come to the precinct with me tomorrow."

He dropped his spoon and stared at her for a minute. "Are you serious?"

"Well… yeah. If you want to."

"But my mom and Alexis… they know where I am."

She nodded. "And?"

"So if I stay the night…"

"Do you want to or not?"

He set his bowl on the coffee table and kissed her lips.

She pushed him away gently, laughing. "I'm not done with my ice cream yet."

"Ah," he said, grinning. "But this is so much sweeter."

She shook her head. "You are ridiculous." But she put her bowl down and kissed him back. "Does this mean you're staying here?"

"I… don't have anything to wear," he said.

She grinned. "Let that be the least of your concerns."

He gaped. "You… wow."

But when she kissed him again, all traces of confusion vanished from his face. "You don't know how long I've been waiting for this," he gasped between breaths.

She thought back to the time before she knew Castle personally, when she'd read all of his books and then stared for longer than she cared to admit at the "About the Author" page, reading the quick bio paragraph but focusing on the picture while willing the part of the paragraph that told her he had a daughter to disappear because she assumed it meant he wasn't available. Not that she believed she'd ever meet him for more than a second or two at a book signing. _But_, she'd then thought, _a girl can dream._

His lips not parting with hers, she led him back toward her bedroom. "Not," she whispered, very softly, "as long as I have."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Yes, I am aware that I'm a tease. But I'm okay with that. Sorry, but I don't write smut (you're just going to have to trust me that it would not go well…), so this is about as much as you're going to get. *fade to black*_

_As a point of interest (which I'm choosing to tell you whether you find it interesting or not because it amuses me), I was listening to "A Lovely Night" from the musical Cinderella (the original Lesley Ann Warren version, in case you're into that kind of thing and have any idea what I'm going on about right now...) repeatedly while I wrote that last scene. Good make out music? :P I actually considered titling the chapter after it, but I think this title fits a bit better._

_One last thing, because I know some of you who read this story also read Daylight (and if you don't, you should! *shamelessly plugs one story within another*). Yep. Totally just wrote that whole chapter while putting off writing the last chapter of Daylight because I'm not quite ready to see it end. It'll be done this week though, and then hopefully I'll start updating this story more consistently._

_Reviews please? Thanks for reading!_


	8. The Ride

**Chapter 8**

**The Ride**

When he woke up, he was convinced that he was still dreaming, because a dream was the only thing that made sense. Only in a dream could he have woken up here, in her apartment, in her bed, feeling the warmth of her body against his own. Only in a dream could he be lying beside her, watching the subtle movements of her eyelids as she slept, carefully regulating his breathing, his every small movement, for fear of waking her.

Only in a dream could her eyes open, and immediately meet his. "You're still here," he couldn't have heard her whisper, a barely coherent murmur.

He patted the mattress beside him. Felt solid. Pinched his arm. It hurt. Gently laid his hand on her shoulder. She smiled. All signs pointed to awake, but he still had one more test to perform. He touched his lips to hers. She kissed him softly, and it was clear: he was not asleep. His imagination, active though it might be, could never create anything this good, not without help from reality.

"Of course I'm still here," he said softly when his lips finally parted with hers. "Where else would I be?"

"So… last night," she began, pulling herself into a seated position.

"Last night," he repeated with a grin. "I can't imagine a more successful evening."

She groaned. "Come on." She started to get out of bed, and nodded for him to follow.

But just as he began to move, he remembered something. He wasn't wearing any clothes. "Where are we going?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Kitchen. If we're gonna talk, I need coffee."

"Understood." He gestured to the sheet that was covering him pointedly. "I'll meet you there."

She blushed and pulled the comforter with her as she got up. "Right. Meet you there."

* * *

><p>As he sat at the coffee table in his rumpled clothes from the day before, across from Kate in a red silk bathrobe, sipping coffee, it became abundantly clear that the plan they'd made the night before for him to ride with her to work hadn't been thought through. "I… should probably go home," he told her. "Change. Shower. I'll meet you at the precinct." He nodded. "Okay?"<p>

"Yeah." She gulped her own coffee, although it was rather hot. "Good. See you there."

"See you there," he repeated.

"Castle?" she said, stopping him before he could take another sip.

He made eye contact. "Yeah?"

"_Nothing_ to the boys. Or anyone at work. Got it?"

He nodded. "Got it."

* * *

><p>"Look who's finally home," Martha greeted her son at the door with a smile that was loaded with something besides happiness.<p>

"I don't want to hear it, mother," Rick shot back, although he couldn't quite keep the smile from his face. "Not from you."

"Oh." Martha waved him off. "I'm just happy for you, darling. It's about time."

"Yeah." He realized he'd have to wipe the dreamy look off his face before he got to the precinct, but he didn't see any point in returning to reality too soon. At least not until he saw the look on his mother's face, the look that told him she was about to start asking questions that he was positive he would not be answering. "Okay, conversation over," he said, before it had really begun. "I have to get ready for work. Alexis at school?"

Martha nodded. "She went in early today. Some kind of history project she was finalizing."

"Oh right, that was today." It was probably just as well that he only had to do his walk of shame in front of one family member, especially because he was sure that he was in for a long day of pretending that nothing at all had happened when he got to the precinct. Maintaining the level of subtlety that Kate insisted on was becoming exhausting, but hopefully that would all be over soon. Now that they'd taken their relationship to the next level, he thought she might be a bit less reluctant about making the first level public. "Good. Okay, I'm gonna go change and then hit the precinct."

"Beckett all night, Beckett all day… aren't you worried she's going to get sick of you?" Martha called as he walked away.

He turned around to face his mother once again. "You know I always appreciate the love, but I really have to go."

* * *

><p>If Rick had ever really believed that today would be the day that Kate would finally loosen up and make their budding relationship public, he'd been sorely mistaken. But if he'd believed that he and Kate would be in for yet another painful day of trying to hide the smiles they each kept tossing in the other's direction, he would also have been mistaken.<p>

Every time he tried to slip under her radar, to sneak her a loaded glance that no one else would see, even just to playfully flirt with her a little, she ignored him. She didn't blush, she didn't scold, didn't smile or frown… in fact, she didn't react at all. It felt a little like he was invisible, and it wasn't a feeling he relished. Richard Castle was used to being noticed.

When they were talking about the case they were working on, or the other detectives, or anything that related directly to the here and now, it was fine. Normal. Exactly the way it had always been. She talked and joked with him just as she did every other day. But any time he tried to go beyond that, to even toe the invisible line between "friend" and "more," he became invisible. Castle was nothing if not persistent, but by lunchtime he'd stopped trying.

When finally, after more than a couple of tries, he managed to get her alone in the break room, he thought maybe she'd relax a little. Maybe she'd become a little more like the woman he'd been with the night before, or at least acknowledge that she'd seen him the night before. To the contrary, nothing changed. She looked at him with the same courteous judgment that she always had. He was left wondering, again, if last night had been nothing more than an extremely vivid dream.

"So," he began, trying to test the waters, "do you still want us to come over again? For ice cream?"

"Oh." Now she blushed, which was a bit of a relief. If nothing else it was a confirmation that she was still, indeed, human. She looked around, triple checking that they were the only two in the room. When she'd confirmed this, she nodded. "Yeah. I do."

He smiled. "How's tonight? Too soon?"

"I can't tonight," she said quickly.

His heart immediately sank. Had he done something wrong? His mother's words, which he'd ignored earlier, played in his head. "Aren't you worried she's going to get sick of you?" Had she already?

But he was trying not to be paranoid, and it occurred to him that it was possible she did actually have plans. Maybe with Lanie, or her dad. After all, he wasn't the only person in her life. So he asked. Maybe he shouldn't have, maybe he was prying, but he asked. "Previous plans?"

She made a little noncommittal shrug.

"No?"

She shrugged again.

He smiled a little, trying, still, to loosen her. "You're not tired of me already, are you?"

She must've caught the anxiety that he'd tried to disguise with humor, because she did soften. "No." She smiled. It could just barely have qualified as a smile, but that was what it was. "I'm not." He must not have looked convinced, because she rolled her eyes and insisted, "I promise."

"Well then, why don't you want to see me?"

"Am I not with you right now?"

"No."

She frowned.

"No," he repeated. "Not really. You've been distant with me all day. Haven't you? Am I just imagining that?"

Again, she shrugged. Was she suddenly incapable of yes or no answers?

"Kate." He met her eyes, stern, because she was driving him crazy. "Am I?"

"I just… don't want the others to know yet." She nodded toward the bullpen.

"We had sex," he said, bluntly. "I mean, we did, didn't we? I'm not imagining that, am I?"

She laughed. "No, you're not." Finally, a real answer.

"Good. Because, you know, it wouldn't be the first time."

"Castle," she admonished, still laughing.

But he sobered then, because he wanted to talk about this now. He _needed_ to talk about this now. "Don't you think it's time? Couldn't we at least tell our friends?"

"Lanie—" she began, but he stopped her.

"I know Lanie knows, but what about them?" He nodded toward Ryan and Esposito, who they could see together at Ryan's desk through the glass. "What about the captain? Your dad? All of these people, they deserve to know. And we deserve not to have to hide it from them. Because I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hiding."

"Soon," she promised, earnestness in her eyes. "We'll tell them soon. Just not yet. Okay?"

"Are you… waiting for something?" He wasn't trying to push, not really, he was just trying to understand. What was the holdup? Why did their relationship have to be a secret when what he wanted more than anything was to shout it from the rooftops?

"No, I'm just… I'm not ready yet."

"Ready for what? To be in this relationship? Because I'm all in here, Kate. And I want you to feel the same way, but if you don't… If you're rethinking…"

"No," she interrupted him. "I'm not rethinking anything." Her face was earnest, and just a little pained. "I want this, I'm just not ready to go public yet."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Positive. And I'm sorry, but tonight just isn't a good night. Now, I really need to get back to work. She met his eyes and smiled with the first trace of flirtation she'd given him all day. "You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay." He was confused, but he was okay.

* * *

><p>The next day wasn't much different, except that in the morning, when he brought Kate her coffee, she smiled and casually told him that she had something to show him later. He spent the rest of the day trying in vain to concentrate on the case as he also thought about what she could possibly have to show him and when "later" would come.<p>

He thought it might be "later" when he was alone in the car with her, on the way to interview a suspect, but apparently he was wrong. It was the same as always: polite conversation, the occasional quip about a song on the radio, but that was all. At one point he even asked, "You said you had something to show me?" But she simply responded, "No, later," and changed the subject to the irritating nature of the construction on the road.

It wasn't until after the interview, when they were sitting in the car outside the building where the suspect (whose alibi had checked out) worked, that she began rummaging in her purse.

"Looking for something?" he asked.

"Yeah, I know I put it in here… yes." She pulled out the familiar leather bound notebook triumphantly. "Go to the bookmark," she said, handing it to him. "I did it last night."

He frowned. "Last night? I thought you had plans last night."

"I didn't say I had plans, I said I couldn't do anything with you."

He couldn't help being somewhat offended by this. "So you just didn't want to see me?"

She seemed to melt a little. "Don't take it like that," she pleaded. "Please. It's just… I'm not the kind of person who can be with anyone twenty-four seven. I need a little space, you know? I need a night to myself sometimes."

He nodded. He did know this about her. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to change her perspective, even if only a little at a time. "Okay. Just, if I do something to upset you, promise you'll tell me what it is. I don't want to mess this up without knowing why."

She smiled, leaned over to the passenger side of the car and gave him a very surprising peck on the cheek. "You won't," she promised. Back on her side of the car, she started the engine. "Now read."

_I was fourteen. I was just getting home from my first real date, and I remember I felt like I was floating. We'd just gone to a movie, but it was really the first time I'd been out with a boy by myself, and I was excited. I floated all the way to my room and just sat down on my bed, trying to replay in my head what had felt like the definition of a perfect evening._

_Within a few minutes, my mo knocked on my door and came in, sitting down in my desk chair. "How was your date?" she asked._

"_Good," I'd said simply. That didn't begin to sum it up, but I hadn't felt the need to fill her in on every detail._

_But she'd always been able to see through my facades, and she smiled. "You really like Brian, don't you?"_

_I nodded._

_ "Did you kiss him?" she asked, not prying exactly, just curious._

_ I shrugged, but I couldn't stop smiling, and had to give in. "He kissed me," I told her. "In the movie."_

_ She had a way of looking at me with this "I-know-something-you-don't-know" expression, one part fond and one part patronizing, and that was how she smiled at me then. "Just be careful, Katie," she said._

_ I knew what she meant, I knew exactly what she meant, but I wasn't going to let on. "What, kissing him? He doesn't have braces or anything."_

_ But it was impossible to slip anything past my mom. It always had been. It was, occasionally, very annoying. "No," she said, shutting me down quickly. "I know you know what I'm talking about. Take it slow, okay? Chances are you're not going to be with your first boyfriend forever. Just remember that."_

_ "I'm not thinking about breaking up just yet," I told her, irritated._

_ "That's not what I'm saying, and you know it's not," she told me sternly, doing that annoying mother thing again. "I want you to be happy. That's all I want. And if this Brian kid makes you happy, that's great. And who am I to say? Maybe he will turn out to be the love of your life, and maybe someday, someday in the far, far distant future, you'll marry him."_

_ I rolled my eyes. _"Mom."

_But she held up her hand. "Just let me finish. This could happen, but chances are it won't, and I just need you to remember that you're young, and if he turns out not to be the guy for you, don't let it break your heart. Because someday, you will find the guy that _is_ for you, and you'll love and support each other, and you'll be done. You'll be done with heartbreak, and then, and only then, you'll be all grown up. But until then, enjoy the ride. It can be a good one. Just don't let it get away from you." She nodded. "Okay. I'm done now."_

_ I nodded, pretending that I'd been only half-listening, because, at fourteen, it just wasn't cool to hang on your mother's every word, especially not when she was talking about boys and dating. I was supposed to be able to figure that stuff out for myself. But when she left, some of her words were still resonating in my head. That was the first, but not the last, time we had a conversation similar to that, and to this day I still remember her advice._

_ If you follow my mom's logic, I guess I'm still not quite grown up yet, but I am getting there._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: A little on the short side, maybe, and definitely a long time coming, but hopefully it was worth the wait! Hope you liked the chapter, and I hope you review! I haven't gotten any reviews in awhile, which I realize is entirely my fault because I haven't updated anything in awhile... but I legitimately miss reading them. :)**

**Oh, and for the record, if you're confused about why Beckett's torturing Castle as much as she is... remember the next chapter will be her POV, so it should clear a few things up. :) This one's purposely a little ambiguous.**_  
><em>


	9. Family

**A/N: This should be a nice long chapter to keep you occupied for a little while. As promised, I think it'll answer a lot of questions. Hope you like it!****  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Chapter 9<strong>**

**Family**

She'd been able to feel herself pulling away from Castle ever since they had sex. She knew he'd noticed, but she didn't want him to get the wrong idea, so she'd compensated by trying to dig deeper, to give him more in her writing than she ever had before.

It wasn't that she regretted that night, not exactly. She definitely didn't regret dating him, if that was even the right word. They still hadn't really been on an official date, not to anywhere except each other's houses. But she loved kissing Castle, and holding his hand, and seeing him outside of work… in fact, she hadn't been completely honest with him when she'd said that she needed space. She would've loved to have seen him that night, but she was scared.

The night of the dinner, after his family had left, had been so perfect. Too perfect. So perfect that she couldn't imagine anything ever topping it. When she realized that, she'd started to get nervous. Two minutes into the relationship, and it had already peaked. Now there was nowhere to go but down. So she'd tried to backtrack, to start taking things more slowly again, but there were some lines that couldn't be uncrossed. As far as she could tell, all her effort had done was make Castle nervous, make him think that she was rethinking their relationship, and that was exactly what she didn't want him to think.

She was trying. Trying to open herself up. Trying to fully let him in. But this time, more than ever before, in any relationship she'd ever had, there was so much at stake. If things didn't work out, if it ended badly, if it ended at all... everything would change. He'd become so big a part of her life that she had trouble imagining what her life would be like now without him. The same as before she met him, she guessed… but she didn't want to go back to that. She hadn't been happy then. She'd been getting by, but she hadn't been happy. Now she was happy. She was really happy. But if there was one thing she'd learned in her life so far, it was that nothing could last forever.

She knew it wasn't fair to Castle to keep changing her mind every two minutes, going from kissing him and wanting to be with him to holding him at arm's length, and she knew it wasn't fair that she wouldn't let him tell anyone other than his family that they were together. He was being so great to her. Being there with her through the anniversary of her mother's death. Helping her with the writing project. Letting her spend time with his family when she'd thought it was what she'd wanted. That had been too much, she now realized. She'd gotten swept up in the excitement of the new relationship and had tried to go too far too fast. That whole evening had been kind of a disaster. It had started out fine, but she realized now that her reasons for the meal, the whole to-do, were wrong. She hadn't just been trying to get closer to Castle's family, it still seemed too early for that. She'd been trying to use them as a substitute for the family that she missed, which they weren't, and she'd been trying to be her mother, who she wasn't, and would never be. When she realized that, she'd ended up in such a vulnerable place that the sex had just kind of happened, and again, it was too far too fast.

Almost a week had passed since that night, and she had yet even to see Castle outside of work. She knew it was driving him crazy, and she felt badly about that, so finally she'd agreed to a writing date at his place. A true step backward, back to the way things had been before the disastrous evening and the night she didn't regret, but did wish hadn't happened just yet.

Castle had told her that Martha and Alexis were both spending the evening out, and she was grateful for that. She hadn't spoken to either of them since her minor but completely unjustified freak-out about the burnt garlic bread. She'd told Castle to apologize for her, and she was sure that he had, but she wasn't ready to face them herself just yet. She'd been an awful hostess and she knew it, and she was sure that both Martha and Alexis would be perfectly understanding, but honestly, that was part of the problem. She didn't deserve for them to completely understand, completely forgive her. Not just yet.

As she expected, Castle answered the door. But there were noises coming from inside that he was clearly not causing, and his face, as soon as she saw it, was twisted into a grimace. "I'm sorry," he apologized, the first thing out of his mouth. "We're not alone."

When she walked in the door, the scene that met her was all too familiar, but she couldn't have been more surprised by it. Alexis and Martha were there, standing beside the couch, squared off, yelling at each other. _Yelling_.

She hadn't realized how romanticized the ideas she'd formed about Castle's family were until this moment, when they all came crashing down around her. In her mind, Alexis and her grandmother didn't fight. They didn't even disagree. Alexis was the angelic daughter who had the occasional teenage problem, but most of what she heard she'd always been sure was blown out of proportion by Castle. Martha was the glamorous and somewhat self-absorbed, but ultimately wise, mother. Alexis respected her grandmother at least as much as she respected her father, and Martha adored her granddaughter.

She should've realized that this wasn't completely true, wasn't even possible. No family was perfect, and no two people who spent a lot of time together lived without disagreement. Another fact she knew well was that no teenage girl got along seamlessly with her mother. True, Martha wasn't Alexis's mother, but they did live together while Alexis and her mother didn't, and it was easy to imagine Martha playing a maternal sort of role from time to time, which would've included both the good and the bad.

"Come on," Castle said over the noise, which hadn't died down when she entered. "My office will be at least a little quieter."

She tried not to listen as she walked past, as what they were fighting about really wasn't her business, but caught a few snippets anyway. "You don't have _any_ idea what you're talking about!" she heard Alexis squeal. "Next time you want to give me advice, at least make sure you have some _basic_ grasp of the situation!"

"How _dare_ you talk to me like that!" she heard Martha retort before Castle closed the door to his study, blocking out most of the noise.

He shook his head violently. "I hate it when they do that."

She frowned and took the seat opposite his desk. "Do they do it often?"

"No, hardly ever. You just got lucky, I guess. I'm sorry. I know I told you they wouldn't be here, and they weren't supposed to be, but plans kind of got cancelled when World War 3 broke out."

"Ah, it's not your fault." But she realized she had no idea what they were fighting about. For all she knew, it could've been his fault. "What started it, anyway?"

"I wasn't there for the beginning, and I haven't been able to get either of them to calm down long enough to tell me anything coherent, but from what I can gather my mom said something about one of Alexis's friends that Alexis didn't like. And all hell broke loose."

"It's a hard time," she told him, trying to be a little consolatory. "Toward the end of high school trying to get into college? I remember that, it was stressful. I fought with my parents a lot, too. And knowing Alexis, I'm sure she's taking some hard classes, and that doesn't help."

"Yeah… you're probably right. No matter what my mother said, lashing out like that isn't Alexis."

She nodded. But he still looked bothered. "You okay?"

"Oh yeah, thanks, I'm fine." He sat down and painted an unrealistic smile on his face. "You ready to write?"

She took out her notebook and flipped to the next blank page. "I'm ready."

He smiled. "Then get started."

When she first put her pen to the paper, she didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to write about, but she didn't let that stop her. She'd withdrawn from him so much in real life that she had to figure out some way to make up for it, and this writing project seemed as good a place as any. And now, on top of that, he was upset that his mother and daughter were fighting and she wanted to help him feel better. However, actually physically comforting him seemed like it could be a little… dangerous, and she'd already told him everything she could think of out loud, so she thought she might be able to help a little more this way.

She followed the advice he'd once given her, and she didn't think. She just wrote. And as she wrote, she dug, trying to break through the surface tension, to write everything as she remembered it, leaving no fact, no detail or bit of information, unrecorded.

_My mom and I didn't always get along perfectly. When I was a teenager, our relationship was pretty typical. Sometimes we were close, and other times we drove each other crazy. I was by no means a perfect daughter, and at times she could be a little more protective than I would've liked._

_ When I was a senior in high school, our relationship hit an all-time low. I couldn't be in the same room with her for more than a few minutes at a time. I felt like she was constantly nagging, about my friends, my grades, the music I listened to, the motorcycle I wanted to buy, and eventually did buy…everything._

_ One night, just a couple of weeks after I got my bike, she was upset with me for getting a B in French, which was usually one of my best subjects. She told me that I was working too much and that if I didn't focus on school I'd never get into a good college. She wanted me to quit my job, but I needed to work to pay for the insurance on my motorcycle, and she wasn't willing to help with that. She told me to sell it and put the money toward college, and I snapped. I told her that if I was such a terrible daughter it must have been because she was a bad mother, give or take a little profanity, and I walked out of the house. I took my bike and rode it around for awhile, and ended up staying at a friend's house for the night._

Objectively, she knew that the writing wasn't her best. She hadn't dug deep enough, hadn't used any specific dialogue, and hadn't even written down everything she remembered, but she found that when she reached the end of the paragraph she couldn't go any further. There was one specific detail that she couldn't write, couldn't put into words, but couldn't get out of her mind. Right before she'd left that night, she'd caught a glimpse of her mother's face, and there had been tears in her eyes. And in her bitter, teenage, hormone-and-stress-induced furor, she'd been glad. Satisfied. She'd felt as though her mission had been accomplished. And still she'd left, refused to go home again for almost twenty-four hours.

_My God_, she realized, fully for the first time. _I was a nightmare._ She felt tears stinging her own eyes as she stared at the page with a blank sort of horror.

"You okay?" she heard Castle ask. She'd all but forgotten that he was there, lost as she was in her own memory, and the sound of his voice pulled her back to the present as it always did, but this time it wasn't a gentle pull. She didn't feel the cushion of his presence that she was used to, the familiar assurance that he was there and everything would be alright. It was more like he'd yanked her into the moment face-first, and nothing was alright. She'd been a horrible daughter, and since her mother was dead, she'd never be able to correct that. She'd never be able to apologize, never be able to make up for all the trouble she'd caused, and there was nothing that Castle could do to soften that blow. Instead he'd strengthened it. His family had reminded her of the way they used to fight, and he'd encouraged her to delve deep into her memory and unearth all the details she could scrounge, the details that sharpened all of her memories, even, if not especially, the painful ones.

"No," she heard herself say, slamming her notebook closed and looking him in the eye. "Why did you make me do this? Why did you make me come here? Why did you make me start this whole stupid project in the first place?" Then she stood up and stormed out of the room, this time not making the mistake of turning around to see the face of the person she'd just hurt.

She had every intention of leaving and no intention of every coming back. She'd gone too far, given too much. She'd pushed her personal space bubble so far that it had burst, and she had no choice but to run, leaving the notebook and pen that he'd bought her behind. Her writing project and her relationship with Castle would end just as they'd begun: together. He would read her last piece, realize was a terrible person she was, and leave her alone. Forever.

But she was met at the door by Martha. "What happened?" the older woman asked warily, blocking her way. "What did he do?"

"Nothing. Martha, please. I'm going home."

"What happened?" she repeated, a stubborn resolve in her eye that Kate could tell she wouldn't be able to overcome.

"I just have to go," she said, filled with her own stubbornness.

"Not until you tell me what's going on between you and my son." Martha's eyes were steely, full of tenacity that was leftover, Kate guessed, from her argument with Alexis. "You spend every minute together, then you spend the night together, and then you barely see each other at all. Something happened. Maybe not tonight, but something did. What?"

"I don't see how it's any of your business," she murmured, somewhat rudely.

"It _is_ my business because I want my son to be happy, and I've had my eyes open long enough to see that he's never really going to be happy unless he's with you. Now you tell me, what happened?"

"I just can't do this anymore," she managed, blinking back tears. "Let me go."

"Does this have anything to do with that project the two of you have been working on?" Martha asked, showing no sign that she was going to move from the doorway.

Kate shrugged, but Martha saw through it, and she blanched. "He told you about that, I guess?"

She nodded. "It must be difficult for you at times. Remembering."

Kate was finding it harder to stop the tears from coming now. "I… I thought it might be easier to remember than to forget… but I don't know anymore."

"But that isn't Richard's fault, is it?" Martha asked gently.

Slowly, Kate shook her head.

"Come have a cup of coffee with me." Martha nodded toward the kitchen, and it was more a statement than a question, but she didn't leave the doorway until Kate nodded. "Sit," she said, motioning to one of the stools at the counter as she led the detective back into the apartment. "I'll be right with you."

When the coffee was brewing, Martha sat down at the stool beside Kate's. "You know, you're not the only one who's lost a parent."

She was a little taken aback by Martha's directness. "I… I know?" she managed.

"It happens to all of us eventually, and it's always painful. More tragic when it happens out of time… but it is something that we all have to experience. I understand that at my age it's to be expected, but both of my parents have been gone for a number of years."

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say here. "I'm sorry, Martha."

But she kept on, not even pausing to acknowledge Kate's response. "Now, I understand my circumstances and yours were vastly different. Both of my parents lived long lives and died of natural causes, and your mother didn't get the chance to do either…"

She felt the tears welling in her eyes again, and apparently Martha saw them again, because she paused.

"I'm sorry," she said gently. "I don't mean to bring all of this up again, but if you'll allow me, I haven't reached my point yet."

She swallowed and nodded. "Go ahead."

"My parents were good parents, by their own definition, but they were very strict. Very religious. The first time I ever sang publicly was in their church's youth choir. It didn't take me many years to discover that it was not the life for me. The first time I told my mother I wanted to be an actress, I thought she was going to faint. But somehow, that only made me more determined. I was in high school by the time I managed to save enough money to apply for a Broadway training program, and when I got accepted, they threw me out of the house. For a few years I really only saw them on holidays, and then when I told them I was pregnant, out of wedlock, and not only did I have no intention of getting married, but I had no idea who the father was… they were done with me. In their eyes, they had failed. They had failed to raise a daughter who could live up to their standards. And I… I had failed to be a daughter who could live up to their standards."

Now Kate really didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she'd expected to come out of this conversation, but it definitely wasn't this.

Martha took a deep breath and said quietly, "I've never told anyone all of this. Not even Richard. He never knew his grandparents, but I don't think he ever really understood why. After awhile he stopped asking. My guess is that the stories he made up satisfied his curiosity."

Kate frowned. "I've never known him to give up on a mystery before it was solved."

Martha shrugged. "Maybe he figured it out and never told me, or maybe he made up a story that he believed… regardless. It doesn't really matter. My point is that there were periods of time, sometimes long ones, when I felt very alone in the world. I expect this feeling is one that you're not altogether unfamiliar with."

She cleared her throat. "I, um… I think that would be a safe assumption."

"Now, I understand that my story and yours bear very few similarities, but there is one commonality. And that is Richard. When I was at my most confused, my most vulnerable, at the time in my life when I felt the most alone… he came along, and he gave me a family again. And I think that if you're willing to let him, he'll do the same for you."

The coffee was done, and Martha got up to pour two cups. Kate literally felt dizzy. She knew that Martha wasn't wrong.

"Cream and sugar?" Martha asked.

"Fine." She didn't much care what was in her coffee at the moment, as long as she could drink it.

Martha set a cup in front of her and she took a long sip. It was hot and strong, exactly as she wanted it to be. When she was done drinking, she turned to the older woman again. "What if I can't give him what he needs?"

She smiled. "Darling, all he needs is someone who cares about him. If you're concerned about that, then it's already you."

"But he… he can anticipate my every need, everything I could possibly want, and he gets it for me, or does it, whatever it is. The only thing he's asked of me is that I let him tell people we're together, and I couldn't even do that."

"Why not?"

"Because… everything was going so well. I'm not ready to ruin it. I'm not ready to be in the tabloids as 'Richard Castle's cop girlfriend.' It's bad enough that people know me as 'the real Nikki Heat.' If it gets out that I'm actually in a relationship with 'the real Jameson Rook'…" She sighed. "I didn't sign up for that. I don't want my personal life printed all over page six. That's not who I am. And even at work, if everyone finds out that we're together? I'll never hear the end of it."

Martha smiled. "Maybe I read you wrong, but I wouldn't have thought you were one to put so much stock in other people's opinions."

Immediately, she had no retort for that. Again, Martha had a point.

"What are you afraid of, darling? You love him, don't you? Let him know."

She started to take another long drink of her coffee, but stopped short when Castle emerged from his study, and appeared to be as surprised to see her as she was to see him. "You're still here."

All at once, she remembered what she'd written earlier and why she'd tried to leave. Maybe Martha was right and Castle could give her a family again, but she couldn't be part of a family. She wasn't any good at it. And he knew that now. He knew what a terrible daughter she'd been. "I was just leaving," she lied, starting to get up.

"Oh, she was not." Martha casually glanced into Kate's coffee cup. "She still has… half a cup of coffee yet. My goodness, you drank that fast."

She ignored Martha's comment about her coffee-drinking speed and stayed focused on Castle. "I'm sorry I'm still here," she told him. "I didn't mean to be, your mom just… I got distracted. I'll go now."

"What did I do?" he asked simply. "Remember, you promised me that if I did something to upset you you'd tell me what it was? Well, obviously I upset you. What did I do?"

She was only able to maintain eye contact with him for a second before she looked away. "You didn't do anything," she told her shoes.

"Then why are you trying to leave?"

She met his eyes again, making it a kind of game, trying to see how long she could hold eye contact. "Didn't you read what I wrote? I figured you did, you were in there for awhile."

He nodded. "I did."

"So… you know what an awful daughter I was."

He smiled. "You were a teenage girl. I can hardly hold that against you. You said it yourself, stress and hormones… it must be hard."

She blushed. "I was talking about Alexis, not me."

"You were talking about Alexis based on your own experience. You made that clear in your writing. And I don't believe that you were a bad daughter, not for a second."

He was doing it again. That thing where he told her exactly what she needed to hear, even though she hadn't known what that was until he said it. She looked at Martha, who was still in the room, just watching. The older woman nodded, and Kate realized that she knew how to counter it this time. "We'll tell Ryan and Esposito tomorrow," she said softly.

For a minute, he looked puzzled. "Tell them…?" But then realization dawned on his face, and he smiled. "Really?"

She nodded. She hadn't lost the game yet, she was still holding his eye contact. So she bumped herself up to level two, and took a step closer to him. Eye contact still holding strong, she took another step. Level three. She raised herself onto her toes just slightly. Level four. She let her lips meet his and her eyelids slid closed. And although she'd broken her eye contact, it didn't feel like she'd lost the game. It felt more like she'd won.

* * *

><p><strong>AN (again!): I've been planning this chapter for awhile. It was fun, but tedious, to write. But hopefully it does resolve a lot of questions, and I have a feeling the story as a whole will start getting fluffier from here.**

**I'm especially curious about what you thought of Martha's backstory. Believable? At any rate, it was fun to write. Review please! And thanks! :)  
><strong>


	10. Friends

**Author's Note: **No, nope, you're not hallucinating. I really did update this story. Finally.

I _know_ that it's been a long time since I updated this, but I just looked at the actual date of the last update... August 19. _August._ It's _October._ I suck. But anyway, finally, at long last, a new chapter! And another one is coming some time in the not-too-distant future, I promise. Really. Stop looking at me like that.

Since it HAS been so long, I'll give you a quick recap of what's happened lately. If it weren't for my outlines I wouldn't remember, so I don't know how I could possibly expect you to.

Basic information that you should probably remember: Castle and Beckett are together now. He managed to convince her to start writing in a notebook to help her to remember her mother, and he's been helping her with that, but she's beginning to get pretty good at it now. More specific/recent details: at the end of chapter 7, Castle and Beckett spent the night together (take that in every possible way you can imagine). Kate was very intent that no one at work find out about it, considering they don't even know that she and Castle are dating. At this point they are still keeping their relationship private, and no one knows about it except for Lanie, Alexis and Martha. Beckett started pulling away from Castle a little, afraid that their relationship was moving too far too fast, and the writing project hit a bit of a speed bump when she remembered that she'd been far from a perfect daughter, and she briefly considered ending everything: her writing project and her relationship with Castle. Fortunately Martha managed to talk some sense into her, and Kate made the decision to go forward instead of backward. She agreed that it was time to let at least Ryan and Esposito know that she and Castle are in a relationship. And that's pretty much where this chapter picks up. :)

I hope you like it! And that my complete and utter lack of updating hasn't made everyone completely give up on this story... I'll try to be better, I swear.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

**Friends**

Rick could've done a happy dance on the way into the precinct that morning. In fact, at one point he almost did, but pride got the better of him when he realized that if he gave into his compulsion, the other people in the building would probably never take him seriously as an almost-cop.

Today was the day he could finally tell his partners, his friends, that he had achieved his ultimate goal—the one he'd been striving toward for three years now, and the one that, somehow, had seemed more difficult and more important than anything else he'd ever attempted. He was in a relationship with Katherine Beckett.

He realized that Beckett would probably be the one to do the telling, and that she would likely do it with as little flourish as possible—not his usual style—but that was fine. They would know, and that was enough. Regardless of how it was told, it would be a big deal, and he couldn't wait to see their faces.

He took the elevator up to the bullpen with two officers from another division who he didn't know. When he noticed them eyeing the four lattes in the cup carrier he was holding, he smiled and said, "Sorry fellas, they're for my team. But we've got a cappuccino machine in the homicide break room, and you're welcome to stop by. Bring your own cup."

They looked at each other, confused, and nodded before getting off at their floor. Castle chuckled to himself. Normally he didn't invite outsiders to drink their coffee, but at the moment he was in such a good mood that he'd probably be willing to buy fancy coffee machines for every break room in the precinct if they asked. Some new cruisers, a few police horses… he wondered if it would be too extravagant to buy a whole new precinct, with Jacuzzis in all the bathrooms and a chocolate fountain in the lobby. Maybe a bar in the basement…

Fortunately the elevator stopped at his floor before he was able to do a whole lot more fantasizing. As he got out, he tried not to have an unusual amount of spring in his step, but he could feel himself bouncing a little as he approached Esposito's desk, apparently the chosen hangout for the detective duo this morning. "For my boys," he said, setting two of the coffees in front of them.

"Thanks, Castle," Ryan said, beaming.

"Yeah, thanks bro," Esposito added.

But Rick was already bouncing to Beckett's desk.

"And for my girl." He raised one eyebrow suggestively as he handed her the cup.

She blushed and admonished, "Castle!" in a loud whisper, but she was smiling.

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Ryan said, coming over. "If I didn't know better, I'd say the two of you…" He looked at Beckett. She was still smiling. "I do know better, don't I?"

"I don't know what you know," she said. Still smiling.

By this point, Esposito had joined them. "What's going on over here?"

"Beckett was just about to tell me that," Ryan informed his friend. "So are you two…?"

"Are we _what_, Ryan?" She was obviously playing with him, and Castle loved her for it.

"Ah." Esposito nodded and smacked his squirming partner's arm lightly. "Are you together?"

"Right now?" Castle asked, jumping right into the let's-annoy-Ryan-and-Esposito game. "As a matter of fact, we are. But um… did you really have to ask that? You're standing right there."

Esposito rolled his eyes and Ryan groaned.

"No, for real," Esposito tried again. "There's been a weird vibe with you two for awhile now. We're your friends. You'd tell us if there was something going on, right?"

Beckett nodded. "Yeah, we would." They seemed to accept this, and then she added, "And we are."

"You are… what?" Ryan asked, still clearly confused.

"Together." She took Castle's hand and held it up as visual proof.

"You—" Ryan stopped, speechless, but his partner smiled.

"Congratulations. It's been a long time coming."

Beckett couldn't seem to stop smiling, but she put a finger to her lips to tell her friends to keep quiet. "This stays between us though, okay? I don't want to be in the press just yet."

Esposito nodded. "Sure thing." Ryan was still unresponsive, but Esposito gave him a shove in the direction of his desk, which seemed to do the trick. He nodded at Castle and Beckett and went back to work.

Esposito hung back a little. "Hey, Lanie and I were gonna go to dinner after work tonight if we get out of here early enough. You guys should come. We'll celebrate."

Castle started to nod, but turned to Kate for his cue. She smiled. "Yeah, that would be fun," she said. "Castle?"

He nodded, for real this time. "Definitely." A real double date with Esposito and Lanie. Could his life get any better?

* * *

><p>Castle managed to hang back at the precinct with Esposito while Ryan went with Beckett to do a couple of interviews. He wasn't fooling himself that she didn't realize he had ulterior motives for doing this, but that was okay. She was allowed to realize what he was doing as long as she didn't hear the actual discussion. As soon as they were gone, he went straight to Esposito's desk.<p>

"So, what are we doing tonight?" he asked the detective, diverting completely from any discussion of the case. His mind was already buzzing with hundreds of date possibilities, most of which were admittedly unrealistic.

Esposito raised an eyebrow. "Nothing too fancy," he said, reading Castle's face. "We're just gonna go somewhere and grab dinner."

Castle made a face. "We can't just 'grab dinner'. This is my first official date with Beckett. It can't just be an ordinary evening, it has to be special. Perfect. Magical. Something to remember."

"It's gonna be after work. We're all gonna be tired, and we all have to get up early again tomorrow. Trust me, Beckett will be perfectly happy with a simple, relaxing night with her friends."

"But that's so boring!" Castle protested.

Esposito gave him a look.

"I don't mean _you're_ boring, I just mean… the whole plan, it's not memorable."

"It's the first time you two are going out as a couple, right? And it's the first time the four of us are going out together. How's that not memorable?"

Castle sighed, dejected, but giving in. Esposito was right, unfortunately. It would be difficult to construct an elaborate date for four people with no notice and very little time in the middle of the week. "Fine," he conceded. "But I'll pick the restaurant, and don't think I'm not gonna give it some flair."

The detective rolled his eyes. "Flair away."

* * *

><p>Castle showed up at Beckett's apartment to pick her up about half an hour before they actually had to leave to meet Esposito and Lanie, as per her request. He knocked an odd little rhythm on the door. She had a bell; the knock was more about expelling nervous energy. Not that he was nervous. Just excited, mostly.<p>

"What's with the knock?" she asked as she opened the door, the words out of her mouth before he could even see her.

"I don't know," he said as the door swung open. "Just…" But at this point he saw her, and completely lost his train of thought.

She was more done-up than she normally was at work, which he'd expected. Her hair fell in loose ringlets over the purple sweater she wore on top of a plain black dress. It was tight-fitting but not overly so. The hem was cut above the knee, not short but not long, and the neckline in a smooth V, just high enough to leave something to the imagination. Her spiky black heels showed off her perfectly sculpted legs.

After a moment of him gaping, she cleared her throat. "Castle. I'm up here."

"You're down there too," he murmured, bringing his gaze up to meet her eyes in a deliberately slow fashion. His mind filled in the curves that the dress didn't allow him to see.

She gave him a look that plainly and sarcastically said, "Really?"

"I've seen everything under the dress now," he reminded her. "I'm still not allowed to look?"

She rolled her eyes and ushered him inside. "If you ever want to see what's under the dress again, never look at me like _that_ in public."

"But it's okay in private?"

She ignored that question, which he took as an absolute non-no. "So, did you just bring those to carry around with you?" she asked instead, nodding to the bouquet of flowers he was holding.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why? Would you find that attractive?"

"I'd find it more attractive if you gave them to me."

"Well, in that case…" He handed them to her. "But I'm a little embarrassed about them now. They're not nearly as beautiful as you."

She smiled and shook her head. "You know, once you get the girl you can stop with the lame pick up lines."

"Oh, you know you love it. And by the way, it wasn't an exaggeration."

"Thanks. You don't clean up too bad yourself." She set the bouquet on her kitchen counter.

"So why did you want me here early? Not that I object."

"Right." She led him back into the living room and took her notebook from the coffee table, handing it to him. "I wrote another one," she said. "Tell me what you think."

"Really?" He was surprised that she'd managed to write again so soon after the moderate disaster that her last piece had caused, but he was glad that she had. "Great." He sat down on the couch and opened to the bookmark.

_During my senior year in high school, I had kind of a falling out with a girl who until that point had been my best friend. We didn't really fight, but there was a disagreement over a boy, and at the same time we both stopped talking to each other. We were friends with the same people, so I'd still see her, but we both fell into the pattern of pretending the other wasn't there._

_ I didn't talk about it. I didn't really even think about it. Since there was no exact moment when we stopped being friends, it didn't hit me all at once. Instead, it kind of snuck up on me. But my mom figured out what was going on, maybe even before I did._

_ She noticed that Maddie had stopped coming to our house, and that I'd stopped mentioning her in conversations. When she asked me about it I carefully evaded her questions. But one day it all seemed to catch up with me. It was the day that I'd broken up with my latest boyfriend. I wanted to call her, to tell her what had happened, explain to her why it wouldn't have gone anywhere, and for her to tell me that I'd made the right choice. I just wanted to talk to my best friend. But I realized that I couldn't. We weren't friends anymore._

_ I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when my mom came home. She saw that I was upset and sat down beside me. "Maddie?" she asked, using that motherly sixth sense of hers._

_ I nodded._

_ She wrapped her arm around me. "I know it hurts," she told me gently, "losing a friend. Sometimes I think it's harder than losing a boyfriend."_

_ She was right, of course. I was more upset about Maddie than I was about my boyfriend. Maddie was the one person I'd been sure would always be there for me, and now she wasn't._

_ "Sometimes people grow apart," she continued. "But I think you'll find that as you get older, it's less about having best friends, and more about surrounding yourself with people you care about, and people you can have a good time with."_

_ I nodded. I still had that. I still had my group of friends, minus one notable member._

_ She gave my shoulders a squeeze and assured me that I was going to be okay. And she was right._

He put the notebook down and smiled. "It's great."

"It is?"

"Definitely. I've told you this before, you're beyond my help."

She smiled tentatively. "Really?"

"Well, let's think about it this way," he said. "Did it help you remember that moment?" He thought maybe if she let him be her own judge, she'd be more inclined to believe that it was good.

She nodded.

"Then it's perfect. It does exactly what it's supposed to do."

"Yeah," she said slowly. "I guess it does."

He nodded, and consulted his phone for the time. "Ready to go have a good time with some people you care about?" he asked.

She smiled, amused at his paraphrasing. "Absolutely."

* * *

><p>Through some lucky coincidence, Castle and Esposito pulled into the restaurant parking lot at almost exactly the same time. As soon as they were out of the car, Lanie and Beckett hugged smilingly. "Oh my God, girl, you look gorgeous!" Lanie gushed.<p>

"So do you!" Kate agreed. "I love your dress!"

Castle hung back a little with Esposito, enjoying seeing Kate act like a girl for once. Not a cop, and not a woman, but a girl.

"God, I never thought this would happen," she told Lanie, also bordering on gushing, yet another mannerism that was refreshingly and adorably un-Beckett.

"I always knew it would," Lanie said. "It was just a matter of whether you two got your heads on straight before we were all in retirement homes."

Castle laughed and started leading the group toward the restaurant.

"Never been here before," Lanie noted.

"It's brand new," Castle explained. "Supposed to be amazing."

"And crowded!" Lanie said as they fought their way through the mob at the front doors and were immediately immersed in elegant Chinese décor. "We gonna have to wait a long time?"

Castle grinned. "Just who do you think you're with?"

"Riight. Mr. Famous Writer Man's got connections."

He sauntered up to the hostess importantly, pushing past a couple of irritated customers on the way. "We have a reservation for eight o'clock. It's under Castle."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she told him, "we don't take reservations."

He frowned. "Yes you do. I called earlier. Spoke with the manager. He said he'd make sure we got a table."

Now the hostess frowned. "I'm the manager. Who did you speak with?"

"Uh…" he flipped back through his memory, trying to remember the name. "He said his name was Paul, I think?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. I'll fire him tomorrow."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "So… what? It was some kind of joke?"

"Paul is a twelve-year-old trapped in a thirty-year-old's body. I never would've hired him in the first place if he wasn't engaged to my sister. How many did you say are in your party?"

"Four." This Paul would ordinarily have seemed like the kind of person Castle could get along with, but right now he was coming between his growling stomach and food, which smelled delicious. "Can't you just get us a table? As a kind of apology for the mix-up?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Castle, but there are people waiting who've been here a lot longer than you have."

He sighed. "Fine. How long will it be?"

"Two hours. Minimum."

His eyes widened. He couldn't wait that long, and he knew the others wouldn't want to wait either. _Okay_, he thought_, let's try this another way_. He looked behind him and checked that Beckett wasn't paying attention. She was still deep in conversation with Lanie, not even facing him. "Your hair is absolutely gorgeous," he told the manager. "So… black. And shiny. Very shiny." Wow, since when was he so horrible at complimenting women?

"Flattery is not going to help, Mr. Castle."

_Fine. New tactic. Again._ "Okay… Well, I don't know if you realize this, but I'm Richard Castle, the writer, and if you get us a table I promise I will tweet about how amazing your food is to all of my fans… even if it sucks."

"Look around," she said coldly. "I believe that message has already been received. And our food does not _suck_."

"No," he said quickly, "I'm sure it doesn't. It smells amazing, if that's any indication…" She was still staring at him coldly, and he was running out of ideas. "Look," he said, his final attempt, a Hail Mary. "This is my first official date with my girlfriend, and Chinese food is her favorite…"

The manager raised her eyebrows. "Don't take this the wrong way Mr. Castle, but I couldn't care less. People are waiting. Should I put in your name or not?"

He sighed. "Don't bother. We're not waiting two hours." He turned on his heel and started to walk away from the hostess station. On a whim, he turned back to the manager one last time. "And her hair is a lot prettier than yours!"

Apparently Kate had been paying attention that time, because she was laughing as he re-approached the group. "I'm glad you like my hair," she said, "but why do I get the feeling something went wrong there?"

He was fuming now. "There was a mix-up with our reservation."

There was a collective sigh. "How long?" Esposito asked.

"Two hours minimum."

"Not happening," Lanie said immediately.

"No way we can wait that long," Beckett agreed. "We have work tomorrow."

He nodded. "I know. Dammit. I guess we have to go with Plan B."

Kate nodded, smiling. "Okay. What's Plan B?"

"No frickin' idea." He pushed through the crowd to the door. He needed out of this restaurant now.

"Okay, Plan B," he heard Esposito say as the rest of the group caught up to him in the parking lot. "We'll just do what we were gonna do originally. Go to Remy's for burgers, and then grab drinks at the Old Haunt."

"What the hell's special about that?" Castle snapped. "We all do that at least once a week anyway."

"The four of us are together," Beckett put in. "We're all dressed up. It's plenty special."

"Alright," Castle agreed, hating the idea but not seeing any alternatives. "We'll see you at Remy's."

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry," Castle told Kate as they sat at a traffic light after the long, heavy silence that had hung in the car. "This has got to be the worst first date you've ever had."<p>

She lowered her eyebrows like she was frowning, but the corner of her lip quirked up in a smile. "This isn't our first date."

"Well, it's the first time we've gone out somewhere together."

"You don't have to go out for it to be a date. We've had lots of dates."

"Well, regardless, this is a pretty lame one."

She shook her head. "No it isn't."

He rolled his eyes. "Why are you being nice? You're usually at least honest with me."

"I am being honest." She reached over to his side of the car and squeezed his shoulder. "This date doesn't suck. It hasn't really started yet, but it'll be fun. It'll be fun to go out with just Esposito and Lanie, without the whole precinct, and with you and I really together, as a couple. A good time with some people we care about." She smiled. "What more do we need?"

He felt himself starting to soften a little. He had to admit, he loved hearing Kate say "we" like that, meaning the two of them. We. Couple. Words that now described them. Words he'd never found especially beautiful before, but now? Her hand stroked his shoulder, moving up and down slowly, gently, comfortingly. _It's fine_, she was nonverbally telling him. _I'm not mad. Everything's okay._ And eventually, he began to believe it.

"So…" he asked after a long moment, "when _was_ our first date?"

She thought for a minute. "A couple weeks ago now, I think. When you spent the day with me."

He immediately rebuffed her. "That was _not_ a date."

"Not at the beginning," she agreed, "but at the end? On the steps? In front of that library?" She bit her lip. "Remember?"

He nodded. The sunset. Their first kiss. Of course he remembered. "You really think that was it?"

She shrugged. "Felt like it to me. In that moment."

He frowned. "Really? Because that would mean that the day we started dating was…" he let his voice peter off, because she knew what he meant and he didn't really want to vocalize it.

"The same day my mom died," she finished for him. "I know."

"And you're okay with that?" It seemed weird, maybe even wrong. A day to celebrate and a day to mourn rolled together like that.

She nodded. "It might be good… to associate something happy with that day."

"Okay." If that was how she felt, then it was fine with him. "Then that was it. Our first date."

"And ending…" she said slowly, "and a beginning."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So, as Beckett so astutely noted, the date hasn't really started yet. Which means I have every intention of continuing it in the next chapter. And I'll try not to make you wait another eternity for it. I haven't actually started writing it yet, but I do have the beginning of it in my head, which is promising. I really do love this story, I just need to remember that... my muse has been a lot more driven by angst than fluff lately, and this story is definitely leaning toward the fluffy. Which is a little strange, because fluff used to be my main Thing. I did have fun tormenting Castle a little bit in this chapter. Apparently I can't just be nice to my characters. But anyway. I'm not so sure about Esposito. I love him as a character, I just have trouble getting into his head enough to write him well. Lanie, however, I love writing. So hopefully it balances out.

Reviews are nice. :)


	11. Plans

**A/N: **Okay, who's in the mood for cotton candy? Because that's exactly what this chapter is. A giant mountain of sugary fluff. Get your toothbrushes ready, because this chapter is ready and willing to induce cavities. I think it's a little on the short side for this story's standards... but that's going to have to be okay. How much cotton candy can you really eat in one sitting anyway? ...okay, probably a lot. That aside, hope you enjoy it!

* * *

><p>As amazing as the food at the last restaurant had looked and smelled, Beckett had to admit that she liked Esposito's plan for tonight better. It sounded more relaxing, more fun. A better plan for an evening sandwiched between two days of work. Castle's intentions had been good, but she really wasn't the least bit disappointed that the reservations had fallen through. She could get Castle to take her back to the first restaurant when it was just the two of them and they had more time. But Remy's, with its greasy food and relative lack of atmosphere, was more what she'd had in mind when Lanie had first suggested that the four of them go out together. It might've been less Castle's speed, but she knew it would be more comfortable for everyone else.<p>

She stayed in the car for a second after they'd parked, letting Castle open the door for her. It wasn't that she was in a particularly patient mood, and she was perfectly capable of opening the door for herself, but as grateful as she was for the change of plans, it was clear that Castle was disappointed. She knew how important this night was to him, and she knew him well enough to understand that doing something as simple as opening the door for her would make it feel a little more like a date to him, which was what he wanted.

She slid her hand into hers as they walked toward the entrance. "This will be fun," she promised him for the second time now. "I know it's not exactly the evening you had in mind, but try to make the most of it, okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine. It'll be great." He forced a smile.

"We can do a fancy night this weekend if you want. Let's just have fun tonight."

He smiled, for real this time. "I can do fun."

"I don't doubt it." They walked into the restaurant and se immediately spotted her friends at a booth nearby. She and Castle had gotten held up at a traffic light, so she wasn't surprised that they'd arrived first. "They're there," she said, pointing them out to Castle.

"Great, let's go." They were soon sliding into the booth across from their friends, all smiles.

"We've gotta be the best dressed group in this place," Esposito noted a little proudly, glancing around at neighboring tables.

"Oh, we definitely are," Castle agreed. He smiled at Kate. "And you are definitely the most beautiful woman in this place. Although that would be true no matter where we went."

She rolled her eyes, but smiled.

"Oh yeah," Esposito agreed, nodding cluelessly until Lanie kicked him under the table. "Ow!" he said, rubbing his leg. She was still staring daggers at him. "Oh," he said, finally realizing his mistake. "I meant you, baby!"

"Uh-huh. You'd better have."

Castle laughed and smoothly changed the subject. "I'll pick up the tab for tonight, so go crazy. Get anything you want, as much as you want."

Esposito frowned. "You don't have to do that, bro."

"I want to. It's no big deal, I was planning on spending a whole lot more tonight than we could here if we tried. So try."

"We'll make every effort," Lanie promised. "Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Excellent." Castle grinned.

A waiter showed up at the table then and took their drink orders. "And throw in an appetizer platter for us," Castle told him after giving his order. "Everything you have, and tons of it. We're celebrating here. And put the whole check on my tab."

The waiter smiled and nodded before disappearing toward the kitchen.

"So how's life in the morgue, Dr. Parish?" Castle asked a little teasingly.

"Cold," Lanie shot back. "And busy. Good to be out."

"Mm, sounds like someone's been slacking," he accused Esposito, smirking at the detective across from him. "Gotta get this girl out more often. She's gorgeous, I'm not sure what's stopping you."

Kate shot him a brief and teasing withering stare.

"You with the flattery tonight, Castle!" Lanie said. "I don't know where it's coming from, but I think I could get used to it. Mind if I borrow him sometime, Beckett?"

"Yes," Esposito put in, stone-faced.

Beckett laughed. "Sorry Lanie. You might be my best friend, but there are some things I'm not willing to share."

"Then I guess I'll stick with what I've got." She smiled at Esposito flirtatiously and he put his arm around her.

The appetizers came, and then the food, and Beckett found that she'd been right. Although maybe not Castle's definition of perfect, this evening came pretty close to hers. It was fun and it was relaxing. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Lanie outside of work, and the group dynamic with the four of them worked really well. They had enough in common that they had things to talk about, but were different enough that there was never a dull moment.

"Alright, phase two!" Castle announced when most of the food was gone and all four were incapable of eating another bite. "Drinks at the Old Haunt. On the house. I heard the owner is a very generous man."

"No, see, then we'd have to get up," Esposito groaned, one elbow resting heavily on the table. "And I really don't see that happening."

Lanie rested her head on Esposito's shoulder in agreement. "I'm game for going out," she clarified, "but can we maybe take a nap first?"

Beckett chose to stay vertical and out of the argument, but she tended to agree with her friends. She could easily fall asleep right here, right now. She looked at Lanie and then at Castle's shoulder. It looked comfortable.

Castle caught her glance and narrowed his eyes. "I'd hate to see you three on Thanksgiving."

"Bro, you don't go to a bar after Thanksgiving dinner," Esposito told him. "You turn on a football game and fall asleep on the couch."

"Well, then it's a good thing this isn't Thanksgiving," Castle said, standing. "Come on, up! And to the Old Haunt! The night is young!"

"How in the world do _you_ have this much energy, Castle?" Beckett asked, standing up a little reluctantly. "You ate at least as much as we did."

"Lots of training," he replied. "And if we're gonna do this again, I recommend you three practice first."

"Oh yeah, practice eating tons of junk. As it is I'm going to have to work out forever to make up for all of this."

"You will not," Castle protested. "You'd look gorgeous no matter what you did."

"So you'd still find me attractive if I was two hundred pounds?" she teased.

"I'd still find you attractive if you were _five_ hundred pounds."

"Okay," Lanie cut in, rolling her eyes. "Would you two stop being cute for a second and help me up? Otherwise we may never get out of here."

Beckett laughed and took one of Lanie's hands and Castle took the other. Together they jerked her out of the booth a little gracelessly, and probably with more strength than she would've liked.

"Whoa," she laughed, "a little insistent there, are we?"

"Hey, I'm up, I don't see much point in hanging around here," Kate said. "You too Esposito, let's go."

"Fine," he mumbled, pulling himself out of the booth. "To the Old Haunt?"

"To the Old Haunt," Castle confirmed.

* * *

><p>"I feel like we should toast," Castle announced when they were seated at the bar with their drinks.<p>

"Toast what?" Esposito asked.

"Yeah, come on Castle, you're the eloquent one," Kate reminded him. "Let's hear it."

"Okay, okay." He grinned. Obviously he'd already had something in mind, and had simply been waiting for an invitation. He cleared his throat. "To old friends and new relationships. The familiar and the uncharted."

"Perfect." Beckett raised her glass, and Lanie and Esposito followed suit. They all clinked glasses and sipped their drinks.

"So, I'd say this was a pretty successful outing," Castle said. "Even though everything didn't go quite the way I planned it. What's the verdict? Do we ever want to do it again?"

"Totally," Esposito said. "Lanie?"

"Definitely. Beckett? What do you think?"

She couldn't quite keep herself from grinning. "I think it's been a long time since I've had that much fun."

"So we'll score it as a victory?" Castle asked, now beaming.

"Mark it," Esposito confirmed. "And we'll do it again sometime."

"Great. And next time I'll make sure the reservation holds up."

"Or don't," Lanie suggested with a chuckle. "I liked the way it turned out."

"We could just go with more casual plans from the onset," Castle said. "Less stress for me that way."

"Ah, but the stress for you was part of the fun for us." Lanie smirked.

"You're mean," Beckett accused, hitting her friend's arm gently.

"Hey, admit that it was funny," she shot back.

"You were _so mad_, bro," Esposito jumped in, laughing. "I thought he was gonna hit that poor hostess girl for a minute. And then when I suggested we change plans I swear I saw _my _life flash before _his_ eyes."

He rolled his eyes. "I wasn't gonna kill you, but I admit I did consider a little bodily harm…"

"Well, I'm glad you rethought that," Beckett smiled, "because then I would've had to jump in and save your ass, and I'm wearing the wrong shoes for a parking lot brawl."

"As if you wouldn't wear those shoes to work," Castle teased.

"I've never worn these to work," she said, glancing at her shoes to check that she was correct. "No, these aren't work shoes, these are going out shoes."

"What the hell's the difference if they're all eight inches high?" Esposito demanded.

"They're not _eight_ inches… Lanie, a little help here?"

"The higher the heel, the closer to God," she offered.

"How do you argue with that logic?" Castle asked, smiling.

"I will admit," Beckett said, changing the subject back to where it had been, "that I liked it when you told the hostess that my hair was prettier than hers. Where on earth did that come from, may I ask?"

"The deep recesses of my mind," he said. "You'd have had to have been there."

"In the deep recesses of your mind? I'm grateful that I don't have that kind of access."

"As you should be." He sipped his drink.

"Anyway, we should probably be going soon," Beckett said. "It's getting late and we all have to work tomorrow."

"You're right," Lanie agreed. "Maybe I'll see you all tomorrow."

"If we get a new body," Castle said, a little too eagerly.

"It's a little sad that someone has to die in order for me to see my girl at work," Esposito said. "You know?"

Beckett nodded. "But it does tend to happen."

"And fortunately you can see me outside of work with no death whatsoever." Lanie batted her eyelashes dramatically.

"I'm lucky that way." Esposito smiled.

Beckett finished her drink and set the glass down on the bar. "Okay, we're out of here. Ready, Castle?"

Castle finished his as well and stood up. "Ready."

"Night, guys."

"Night."

* * *

><p>Castle walked Kate back to her apartment and kissed her goodnight. She could've taken it further, but her internal gauge told her that for tonight, this was enough. So she told him she'd see him tomorrow and then floated into her apartment. Yes, that was exactly the term. Floated.<p>

Maybe the evening hadn't been perfect. Maybe everything hadn't gone as planned. But she wasn't perfect. Castle wasn't perfect. Lanie and Esposito weren't perfect. No one and nothing in her life, or anyone else's, was. Perfection was an unattainable goal, although it was one that everyone tried to strive for.

So no, it hadn't been perfect. But it had been great. Fun. Exactly what she'd hoped it would be. She looked forward to many similar evenings and many different evenings. She just looked forward. For the first time in years, many years, when she pictured her future, she liked what she saw.

She looked at the leather notebook in its customary home on her coffee table. Part of her wanted to write. She wanted to get her good feelings down on paper, to bottle them and save them, to always have them at her fingertips. And Castle was right. Writing was powerful. It could allow her to do just that.

But as she looked at the notebook she remembered the purpose of the project she'd started. It was supposed to help her to remember her mother. To look into the past and keep the memories from fading. Right now, she didn't want to look into the past. Right now, she was happy in the present.

Regardless, she sat down on the couch and absently started flicking through the pages. And in doing so, she remembered another goal she'd had when she'd first started doing this. One that was only her own. One that she hadn't shared with Castle even though it directly related to him. To allow him to get to know her mother, the person she had been. To bring him into her past, and, in a more abstract way, to bring her mother back into her present.

Biting her lip, she picked up her pen. She reminded herself that she was partly doing this for her own reasons. She didn't necessarily need to stick to the same format all the time. She could almost hear Castle saying that writing was about creativity, that she could write whatever she wanted, even if it didn't necessarily make sense. He'd also insisted that this notebook was hers and hers alone, and that he didn't need to see everything she wrote in it. This piece, she was certain, was one that she would keep to herself. But she still wanted to write it. So she opened to a fresh page, took a deep breath, and began a very different kind of entry.

_Dear Mom,_

_ So I met this guy..._

She crossed that out with a roll of her eyes and started again.

_Dear Mom,_

_ I wish you could meet_

But that wasn't right either. She thought about her mother and she thought about Castle. She tried to think about what she would actually tell her mom about Castle if she had the opportunity. And she put her pen to the page once again. This time, she would write.

_Dear Mom,_

_ Remember how you used to tell me that, one day, I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with? Someone who I knew would always be there for me? Someone who I could trust? Someone I was willing to work to understand and to keep around? Someone who would complete me? I think, and for the first time I actually believe, that I might've found him._

_ I wish you could meet him, because I think you'd really like him. He's… different. Different from anyone else I've ever known. He's fun. He's witty and he's smart, and he knows how to relax and have a good time. But there's another side of him, one that not many people get to know. He really cares about the people in his life. His family, his daughter… he has a daughter… and me._

_ He's sweet. He really knows me, maybe better than anyone else. He makes me happy. Happier than I think I've ever been. And that's really what it's about, isn't it?_

_ I love you and I miss you every single day. There is nothing I would love more than to introduce Rick to you, and to let you get to know each other. I would love for you to know that for the first time since your death, I'm really happy with my life. I love my job, I love my friends, I love the relationship that I'm in, and I love the way I see my future. I hope that if you could see me, you would be proud._

_Love,  
>Katie<em>

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **How'd you like the cotton candy? That's what it was, am I wrong? :)

Some random thoughts about the chapter. Like I do.

I must admit that I love the end. I couldn't stop grinning for quite awhile after I wrote it. Just thinking about it I probably have a really ridiculous smile on my face. And yep, I totally do. Going off the cuff works for me sometimes. I had no idea where this chapter was going or what the writing part was going to be until I got there, but I like the way it turned out.

The rest of the chapter, I'm a little bit iffy about. I like parts of it, but I feel like other parts are a little (or a lot...) rushed (mainly the part at Remy's...) and I couldn't figure out how to fix that_, _so I ended up leaving it alone. So I know that parts of it probably aren't my best, but it is what it is.

One last completely random, all-me observation that probably only a few of you will get. I didn't completely realize it until I'd finished writing, but I really feel like parts of this chapter are a serious nod to my Gilmore Girls background. (Yes, you can have a Gilmore Girls background. And I do. It's how I started writing in the first place.) I noticed it the most when Castle started talking about training to eat lots of junk food... granted, I think it's in-character for him or I wouldn't have written it, but it's also quite Gilmore Girls-esque. And then there's just the fact that every time I write a lot of banter, especially when it's between more than two characters, let's face it, I know where I learned how to write it. :)

I quite enjoy reviews. Have I mentioned that lately? :P_  
><em>


	12. Public Displays

**A/N:** Is anybody even still reading this? I guess you must be, if you're seeing this A/N, or else you've just found it for the first time and read the first twelve chapters. Either way, that's cool. If you actually have been waiting for an update, I'm SO sorry... I haven't been at all consistent about updating this, and I completely understand if people have given up on it. But I haven't forgotten about it and I haven't abandoned it. It's still coming... albeit somewhat randomly. New chapters tend to come when they want rather than I (or you) might want them. Anyway. If you're trying to pick this story back up with this chapter and not just reading it for the first time, I recommend going back to the last chapter and rereading the note Kate wrote to her mom at the very end. It comes up again, and I didn't think completely reproducing it would make much sense, but it would probably be better if it was fresh in your mind. Just a little tip. :) I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

><p><em><strong>One of New York's Most Famous Bachelors: A Bachelor No More?<strong>_

_Spotted last night leaving one of New York's newest and hippest restaurants was novelist Richard Castle. The well-known bachelor was not alone, but accompanied by a woman who appeared to be Detective Kate Beckett, the inspiration behind Castle's popular character Nikki Heat. Speculation of an impending relationship between Castle and Beckett has been on and off for a number of years, but this picture might be just the thing to finally put those rumors to rest. A source at the restaurant tells us that Castle referred to the woman he was with as his "girlfriend," and in this picture they appear to be holding hands. Sorry ladies, but it seems that the literati playboy might finally be off the market._

* * *

><p>"Death," he moaned, looking up to meet his mother's gaze.<p>

"Oh, come now, darling," Martha said, putting on a sympathetic face that would've been quite effective if it managed to cover up the grin that lurked beneath the surface. It didn't. "She might not actually kill you."

"Death," he repeated, his face becoming more like that of a mournful puppy dog by the second. "Bloody and slow."

"Well, you said she enjoyed the date, didn't you?" Martha asked. "Remind her of that. Then maybe you can persuade her to just shoot you. Make it quick."

"Always appreciate your help, Mother." He got up from his seat at the counter and left the kitchen with a heavy sigh. He couldn't hide forever. He had to go to the precinct.

* * *

><p>How it was possible for a newspaper to weigh more than two full coffee cups, Castle wasn't sure. But the arm carrying the paper felt like it would've rather stayed in the elevator by itself while the rest of him exited into the bullpen. The arm with the coffee was eager as always to find his detective.<p>

Unable to spontaneously split into two and unwilling to cut either of his arms off, he decided to follow the coffee-bearing arm to Beckett's desk. He slid hers to her, and she smiled and wordlessly took a long sip.

_Good_, he thought. _Drink the coffee. Remember that you like me._

"Morning, Castle," she said, setting the cup back down on her desk.

"Morning," he repeated. She looked happy enough. Not ready to kill him yet. She must not have seen it. "You didn't happen to see the paper yet today, did you?" he asked, clutching the one he carried just a little tighter.

"No." Suddenly she was eyeing him warily, and she noticed the one that he was holding. "Why?"

"There's just… There's an article in there that I, uh… that you might be interested in."

She raised an eyebrow. "What about?"

He sighed and handed her the paper, pointing out the short article his mother had showed him earlier. She was going to see it eventually anyway.

She took the paper. As she read, her curious grin faded. She considered the page carefully, and then finally looked up at him sideways. "'Literati playboy'?" she quoted with a roll of her eyes. "Really?"

He gaped at her for a second, confused by her reaction. "But… it's out. Everyone will know."

She smiled. "That we're together? Okay. We are, aren't we?"

"Of course. But I thought you didn't want…?"

She shrugged. "Well, it doesn't much matter what I wanted. It's out now. At least we don't have to worry about it anymore."

"Does this mean we can…" he began, hopefully inching his hand toward hers.

"No." She quickly swatted it away, but she did grant him a tiny flirtatious smile. "This is work, Castle. Some amount of professionalism, please."

"But I'm only an amateur cop," he tried.

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Save the PDA for after hours."

"Tonight?"

"We'll see."

But the set of her face, the way she smiled, not patronizing or teasing but _happy_, told him that his chances were good.

* * *

><p>"God, it's late," Kate sighed as she unlocked the door to her apartment. "You should've just gone home."<p>

Rick walked in behind her with a pizza box. "It's not _that_ late. It's barely nine-thirty. And I thought you wanted pizza."

"I did. I mean, I do. I'm tired, though. It's been a long day. You're not gonna stay long."

"I don't believe I ever expressed any intention of staying for too long."

She rolled her eyes. "I know you."

He smiled and set the pizza down on the coffee table. "What's wrong with wanting to spend time with my girlfriend?"

"Nothing, but we spent the whole day together at work. You do have a family, or have you forgotten about them?"

"I haven't, but trust me, they see enough of me. They're sick of me by now. And," he put his hand behind her back to stop her progress toward the kitchen and looked her in the eye, "when we're at work, you won't let me do this." He let his lips meet hers.

"This is true," she said, pulling away but smiling girlishly. She held up a hand to stop him from going in for another round. "Let me get some plates. The pizza's gonna get cold."

"We can heat it up," he murmured.

"Yes, but I'm hungry, and you tongue isn't going to satisfy my appetite."

He put on his best kicked-puppy face.

She rolled her eyes. _"Different_ appetite. What are you, twelve?" She pushed his shoulder playfully and went to the kitchen. She came back out with two plates and two bottles of beer, handed Castle one of each and sat down.

He put a couple of slices of pizza on each of the plates, and she watched him, yawning. "What, did I keep you out too late last night?" he teased.

"No, last night was fun." She smiled. "It's just been a long day."

"We do tend to get those. At least we closed the case, though. That's always good."

"Makes tomorrow a paperwork day," Beckett sighed. "Will I even see you?"

Rick grinned. "Would you like to see me?"

She blushed, as though just now realizing what she'd said. "Well… yeah. I'd like to."

"So just because we're dating now, you think I'm gonna start helping you with paperwork?" He might've been baiting her a little, because he found her squirming adorable.

"No, but—well—you could at least come keep me company."

"Are there not plenty of other cops at the twelfth for you to hang out with?"

"Are you coming or not?"

He took a thoughtful bite of his pizza, biding his time. "Alexis has a half day of school tomorrow," he finally said. I was gonna take her to lunch."

"I thought she was sick of you."

"Apparently you're not?"

She let a tiny smile creep across her face. "Apparently I'm not."

"I'll try to come in after lunch. How's that? Alexis and I are overdue for some bonding time."

Kate smirked. "If the two of you were any more bound, you'd never separate."

"Yeah, well. She's gonna be starting college before long. I want to hang out with her while she's around."

"I get that. And you know you don't necessarily have to come to the precinct every day. It's my job, not yours."

He raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me there or not?"

"It's up to you. You're always welcome."

"You want me there," he teased. "You know you do."

"I don't need you to do my job."

He grinned. "But you _like_ me."

He could've sworn she blushed, although barely perceptibly. "Eat your pizza," she instructed with a roll of her eyes.

* * *

><p>"I'll clean this up," Castle offered when they'd finished eating. "You relax."<p>

"You're offering to do my dishes?" Beckett asked, not bothering to hide her surprise. "You don't even do your own dishes."

"It's two plates and some leftover pizza. I can handle it." He felt a lot more energetic than his partner looked, and anyway, he'd eaten here too. He could help clean up.

"You sure?"

He nodded and gathered the plates and the pizza box and started toward the kitchen. He moved around a few of the takeout containers that already filled Kate's fridge to make a place for the pizza box and then slid it onto the shelf before proceeding to rinse the plates.

When he reemerged in the living room, he smiled at the scene he found. Kate was slumped on the couch where he'd left her. Her notebook lay open on the coffee table as if she'd been planning to write in it, but at some point she must have given up and turned the TV on. The subdued lights from the news program reflected off of her closed eyelids, and her chest rose and fell regularly. She really must have been tired.

Taking care not to wake her, he picked up the notebook, curious if she'd written anything before she'd fallen asleep. He did find an entry he hadn't yet read, but it was dated from the day before. Figuring she'd written something she'd forgotten to show him, he started reading.

He smiled when he noticed the format, different from anything she'd written before. She'd written it as a letter to her mother. It crossed his mind that she probably hadn't intended for him to read it, and he considered putting it back down out of respect for her privacy, but then his eye flicked ahead of its own accord and he realized that it was about him.

Curiosity overtook him, and he began reading quickly and greedily, needing desperately to know what Kate wanted to tell her mother about him.

The further he read, the more evident it became that she hadn't intended for him to ever read this. He felt the muscles in his throat starting to constrict. _He makes me happy_, she'd written. _Happier than I think I've ever been_. That was something he knew she'd never have told him directly. He couldn't believe she'd even written it. But it was obviously sincere. And he couldn't have asked for more than that.

"What are you doing?"

Roused from the page he'd been lost in by her groggy voice, he felt like he jumped about a foot in the air. "Nothing," he said quickly, putting the notebook down. All of a sudden she was off the couch, standing in front of him. "I was just, um, reading."

She studied his face. He refused to meet her eyes. "You saw it, didn't you?"

"What?" he asked. But he still couldn't bring himself to make eye contact.

"The last thing I wrote. You read it. You weren't supposed to read it. You _said_ you didn't have to read everything I wrote in here."

"Well, you didn't tell me you'd written anything you didn't want me to read."

"And? If I had, you'd have wanted to read it even more."

He bit back a retort, realizing that she was right. "Well, you knew I was used to reading what you wrote in that book. If you really didn't want me to see it, you should've written it somewhere else."

"You're the one who keeps telling me this is _my_ book and _my _project and that I should write whatever I feel."

"So…" he asked, a bit timidly, "…this is what you felt?"

She looked down, not responding.

"I wish I could've met her too."

"She would've loved you," Kate said, softening but still looking at the floor. "I'm pretty sure of that."

"Look, you have every right to be mad at me," Castle admitted. "I'm sorry I read it. I could tell I wasn't supposed to and I did anyway."

She shrugged. "I guess it's okay that you did. It's just… a little embarrassing."

He smiled. "Take a second and think about who you're talking to. You don't ever have to be embarrassed in front of me."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not mad."

"You sure? Because it's okay if you are. Even though we're dating now I'm still gonna drive you crazy from time to time." He smirked. "Maybe more so than before."

She smirked. "Oh, I don't doubt that. But I think I'll save my anger for more serious infractions. Besides," she nodded toward the kitchen, "how can I stay mad at you when you did my dishes?"

"Well, you certainly shouldn't." He grinned and then turned to go. "Get some sleep. I'll see you later."

"Rick," she said, stopping him.

He raised his eyebrows, nonverbally asking what she wanted.

She took a step toward him, closing the gap he'd created when he'd started for the door, leaned forward just enough to make up the difference between their heights, and kissed his lips.

He felt a little stupefied when she pulled away. He hadn't been expecting that. Although she'd said she wasn't mad, he hadn't completely believed her, at least not until that moment. "We've gotta work on your PDA rules," he managed to murmur.

She smiled. "Nice try."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So Kate didn't really write anything new in this chapter... I know the whole idea behind this story was to have her do that, but... I don't know. It didn't really work out in this chapter. Next time. Hopefully it worked as it was.

Reviews are always nice. I mean, I'm going to keep working on this story anyway, but it would help to know whether anyone is actually still reading it. Thanks so much! :)


	13. Influence

"_You know, Katie, it might be tough to believe, but there were people who called me difficult before I met your father."_

_ Every time she started this story, I would roll my eyes. "Mom, you've told me this like a thousand times."_

_ "And now I'm gonna tell you again," she'd say. "I was fresh out of law school, inexperienced as anything. I only got a job at that firm because your grandfather had a connection there. Your dad had been there for a couple of years, and he was _very_ set in his ways. Well, you know your father."_

_I'd nod, partly to show her I agreed and partly just so that she would get to the end of her story faster._

"_My very first month there, he consulted with me on a pro bono case. It was no secret that he didn't want to do it. You know your father," she'd say again, "he was very polite about it, but there was another case at the time, a big, tough, important case that he'd wanted, but it had been assigned to one of his colleagues. He thought pro bono work was a waste of time, and since I was new, he assumed I had no idea what I was doing. He called me 'the intern' when he thought I wasn't listening. In some respects he was right, I still had a lot to learn, but I was no intern. And it was no concern of mine whether the firm got paid or not. I was barely concerned whether I got paid. What did I care? I was a trust fund kid. I'd always had enough money to support all of my wants and needs. But I was _convinced_, even then, that I could make a difference in the world, and _that_ was why I became a lawyer. Not for the money. Not for my parents' approval. I wanted to make a difference."_

"_Mom," I'd prod her, convinced that I had better things to do than listen to this for the hundredth time, "I know."_

"_But your dad," she'd say, ignoring me, "He didn't come from that kind of background. He understood the value of a dollar, and he wasn't interested in working for free. But once he was on a case, he was _on_ that case. He put everything he had into it. He'd stay at the office until three in the morning some nights, tying up loose ends. Meanwhile I'd leave at five and go out and party with my friends from undergrad, and I'd _barely _make it into the office by nine the next morning. I worked hard when I was there, but the minute the day ended, it was over. And if I found an angle on a case, it was the angle we were going to take. If another lawyer had a different opinion, that was their problem. And nobody ever dared to tell me I was wrong. Not, that is, until your father."_

"_And he did, and that made you the person you are today," I'd try to fill in, wishing she'd end the story there. "I know, mom."_

_Again, she'd ignore me. "You know, if he would've yelled at me I just would've asked for another case, and I would've gotten it. And if it happened again with another lawyer, I'd have done the same thing. I would've quit the firm if I'd thought I had to. It made no difference to me. But your dad… he has a way of sneaking up on people. He got me right at the end of the day, and he told me he'd found some new information on the case. Of course, I didn't want to hear it, but he just handed me this file, calm as anything, and told me he thought I should read it. He didn't say I had to, just that he thought I should. I was intrigued, so I read it. This was a long file. It took me the better part of an hour just to read through. And I realized that the approach he'd taken was much better than mine. It was more complex, but it created a much better case. And at that moment… I think I fell in love with his notes." She'd laugh. "Legal notes. Sexy, right? But I did. I was fascinated. The way his mind worked… it was so much different than mine. People don't think of law as creative, but anything can be creative, it's just a matter of how you look at it. I'll bet I went through that file a dozen times that night, rereading everything he'd compiled and adding my own insight. The next thing I knew, it was five in the morning. I'd worked all night. I got so much flak from my friends for that. But I didn't care anymore. I knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And I don't think I figured it out until much later, years later, but your dad was the person I wanted to do it with."_

"_And you learned how to compromise," I'd sigh. Because at the heart of the love story she liked to tell, this was her point._

"_I did." She'd smile. "Katie, relationships are about give and take. All relationships. With friends, boyfriends, parents…" She always added that last word with a gleam in her eye. "Everything isn't gonna go your way all the time, and you have to be okay with that."_

_I'd roll my eyes. I hated the story because it was always the mask for a lecture. Every time she told it, I made up my mind never to compromise, no matter what the stakes were. She was trying to present it as a sign of maturity, but I saw it as a sign of weakness._

_As a teenager, the last thing I wanted to end up with was my mother's life. Now, when I look back, I'm surprised to see that in so many ways, my life mirrors hers. My teenage self would be ashamed of what I've become. But I'm not. I couldn't be prouder._

When he was done reading he looked up at her, beaming, and she relaxed, leaning back a little in the chair that he'd positioned right beside his desk. No matter how many times he read her writing, it always made her a little nervous. After all, he was a bestselling author. Her favorite author, to add even more pressure to the situation. She was still new at this. Plus, no matter what she wrote, somewhere just beneath the surface she always seemed to be talking about him.

"You keep getting better," he insisted, and she felt herself blush.

"You think?"

"Definitely. See how this is a little longer than what you've been doing?"

"Yeah, I realized that when I was writing it… is that okay?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, it's great. You got into it, didn't you? You were enjoying writing it?"

A tiny smile crept across her lips. "Yeah… I guess I did."

"I can tell. It's a good thing. And with this, even more than some of the other stuff you've written? I really feel like I know your mom a little after reading it. And that's what you're going for, isn't it?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Definitely. Really?"

"Really." He smirked. "So she had kind of a wild side to her, did she?"

Kate shrugged. "I never really saw it. I guess it was… when she was younger. Or maybe she just liked to tell me that story because she wanted me to grow out of my rebellious phase. That was what I thought at the time, anyway."

He smiled. "And now?"

"Now… I don't know. What do you think?"

"Well, from the very little I know about her… I think it's true. You know, you meet someone, and you grow to admire them… it has an effect on you. Plus, everyone has to grow up sometime."

"Even you?" she teased.

"Oh, I hope not." He smiled. "What do you think? Have I changed since we met?"

"I don't know if you've changed or I just know you better. You've gotten better at detective work. How's that?"

"That's a cop-out. No… pun intended." He grinned in such a way that suggested that he thought the pun was hilarious anyway. "Really. Do you think you've changed me?"

She rolled her eyes. "I would answer you, but this really feels like a trick question."

He laughed. "It's not, I swear."

"Yeah, I think… I think you're a little different."

"Different how?"

"I think you've matured. I mean, not totally, you're still Castle, and I've actually come to appreciate your… childishness, I guess. It's refreshing. But… I don't know. I think you know when to turn it on and when to turn it off."

"Why, Katherine Beckett, do I detect a compliment?"

She shrugged. "Well, you're my boyfriend now, I can do that every once in awhile. Don't expect it all the time, though."

He smiled, and it was strangely lacking in sarcasm. "Oh, I know better than that. Thank you."

"So what about me?" she prompted. "Do you think I've changed since you met me?"

He nodded easily. "Definitely."

She cocked her head to one side, purely curious. "How so?"

"You've mellowed. A lot. You're not afraid to smile, or to… I don't know, let your guard down every now and then. You're still great at what you do, but you're not so intense."

She smiled. "I guess that's a good thing?"

He nodded. "It's definitely a good thing."

"Does that mean we've both changed each other for the better?"

"I think so."

"So… what does that mean?"

He shrugged. "I think it means we're a perfect match."

"Well, we knew that," she said, giving him a flirtatious look.

He responded by leaning slightly toward her, and she allowed his lips to meet hers. Hers gave, responding instinctually to the pressure of his and the chemistry between them. She had something to say, but every time she tried to speak it came out as a slight moan, which only increased his vigor.

"Rick," she finally managed, pulling away a little, but smiling. When he didn't stop, and her lips didn't seem to want to stop kissing back, she pushed his shoulder away with some force. "Castle," she managed to get out, "stop."

"I don't want to stop," he said, his bottom lip jutting out slightly as if he were an oppressed four-year-old, and brushing her cheek as he spoke near a whisper. "I spent all day at the precinct helping you do paperwork. I think I deserve a reward for that."

She chuckled. "I think so too. I just want to talk to you about something first, and then I promise you'll get your reward."

He backed away enough that there was a cushion of air between his face and hers, but his hand remained on her thigh. "You promise?" he asked with his best puppy dog eyes.

"Yes," she laughed.

"Okay, talk fast."

"I have a couple of vacation days that are gonna expire soon," she said. "I was thinking about taking a little trip, just for a couple of days. My dad has this little cabin in the mountains. We used to go there on weekends sometimes when I was little, but I haven't been there in… I don't even know how long. I remembered it when I was writing the other day, and I'd like to go there again. See if it brings back some memories."

"And now you're leaving me?" His eyebrows came together in that way that they had when he was upset, or pretending to be, wrinkling his forehead and creating that little extra fold just above his eyelid that she'd always found so attractive. "Depriving me of even more valuable kissing time?"

She laughed again. "No, actually, I was thinking just the opposite. I thought maybe you could come with me."

He raised his eyebrows. "Come with you? To your dad's cozy, secluded cabin in the mountains? Seriously?"

She grinned. "I didn't say anything about 'secluded'."

He shrugged. "I inferred. Am I wrong?"

She shook her head. "No, I guess it's pretty secluded. So is that a yes?"

"No, that wasn't a yes. This is a yes." He nodded vehemently. "Yes!"

She rolled her eyes. "So I should take the days off?"

"Absolutely. You deserve a break, and if the days are going to expire, you should definitely take advantage of them before they do. I'm just surprised that you want to take a romantic vacation together. We've only been dating a couple of weeks."

She laughed. "It's not a vacation, it's just a couple of days. And it doesn't have to be romantic."

"But I want it to be."

"We'll see." She raised an eyebrow teasingly. "Okay. I'll tell Montgomery tomorrow. I'll see if I can get this weekend. It's short notice, but I don't think he'll have a problem with it unless we're in the middle of a case. I think I already have Sunday off, so maybe I can take Friday and Saturday and make three days of it."

"Very spur of the moment. I'm impressed."

She smiled. "Yeah, maybe you have influenced me."

"Oh, I know I have." He grinned. "Alexis has a big test on Monday, so she probably won't be much fun this weekend anyway. Works out perfectly."

"Good. So as long as I get approval, it's a plan."

"Best plan I've heard in a long time."

"Good. But it's getting late. I guess I should go."

"Hey!" he said, affronted. "No, you shouldn't." He kissed her lips once, slowly, as a reminder. "My reward? You promised."

A girlish smile crept across her face. "Oh, how could I forget?" she whispered.

"Stay here tonight," he suggested.

She immediately rebuffed him. "We can't do that, can we? Your family's here."

He shrugged. "They already know I stayed at your place last week. And if we're going to be together for a whole long weekend, we should probably get used to spending the night together. We've only done it once before."

She raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you mean by 'spending the night together'?"

He shrugged. "That's up to you."

She gave it a long moment's consideration, and then nodded. "Alright. I'll stay."

He actually looked surprised. "You will?"

She laughed. "Are you trying to get me to change my mind?"

"No!" he said quickly. "No, not at all. You'll stay." He smiled. "I'm glad you'll stay."

She nodded. She loved everything about this relationship, and it was about time that she stopped letting it scare her. She'd already dived in. Now it was time to submerge. "I am too."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Obviously I took some liberties with Johanna's story, but I think I like how it turned out. :) I tried to base it to some extent on the information that we got in the deleted scene from Season 3 where Castle and Jim meet, because I love that scene and it's one of the few times they actually sort of talk about Johanna and Jim's relationship. (If you don't know what I'm talking about and you're curious, you can PM me and I'll send you the YouTube link... or you can just look it up.) Oh, and I'm taking basically everything I know about law from Drop Dead Diva (don't judge... it's kind of a guilty pleasure, and it's a fun summer show... plus if anything from Kate's writing sounds authentic, it's actually somewhat informative), so if anything's a bit off base, it's because I don't actually know what I'm talking about and I'm faking it. :P

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter, and reviews are awesome. :) Thanks so much for reading!


	14. Travel

**A/N: **Sorry for the ridiculously long wait. This story has not been enjoying letting me write it lately. (Yep, it's the story's fault. Not mine. Clearly not mine. I'm an innocent victim here.) However. Now that I do finally have an update for you, it's a pretty long one, so I guess that's a good thing. :) Enjoy.

Oh, and keep in mind that in this world, the events of "Knockout" haven't happened. That's important. You'll see why.

* * *

><p>"When you said 'mountains' I naturally assumed you meant the Appalachians. We've gotta be close to the Rockies by now."<p>

"We've only been in the car for two hours," she pointed out. "You've been on longer road trips with me for work."

"But this isn't business, this is pleasure. And I didn't know it was going to _be_ a road trip. You said it wasn't that far. The first rule of road tripping for fun is that you need to be prepared. You need good music and snacks and activities."

"Activities?" Even her voice was skeptical.

"Yeah, you know, road trip activities. Padiddle? Punch buggy? License plate bingo?"

"How old _are_ you?"

"The point is, you didn't tell me it was this far away."

"It's _not_ that far away. It's not my fault that the traffic getting out of the city sucked. But we're almost there, I promise."

"Your promise means nothing since you already lied about how far away this place was."

"I'm ignoring you now."

"Hey, you invited me. Ignoring is not an option. Besides, without me all you have are…" he gazed out the window, trying to take in his surroundings. "…trees. Lots and lots of trees. This cabin has got to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere."

"I told you it was secluded. But we brought food, and other than that we'll have everything there that we need. And there is cell service, so you won't be _that_ cut off."

"I'm not worried about being cut off. I'm sure you and me and the trees will have a lovely weekend together. If we ever get out of the car."

"We will get out of the car." She smirked, keeping her eyes on the road. "But there's a lot we could do even if we didn't."

He pouted. "No fair when you're driving!"

"Life isn't fair." She made a sharp right onto a road that seemed like it hadn't been paved in decades.

"You're not gonna kill me, are you? Dragging me out into the woods so no one will find the body? Alexis will realize I'm gone… after her test on Monday, anyway."

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."

He nodded. "That's encouraging. I think."

The car stopped outside of a modest log cabin. From the outside it was neither big nor small, and it seemed to fit in among the rocks and trees surrounding it, not camouflaged, but rather seeming as if it could've grown out of the earth.

"This it?" he asked.

She nodded. "This is it."

"It's… different from what I expected."

She shrugged. "I know it's not the Hamptons, but I have a lot of memories here."

He shook his head. "No, it's great. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't. It's just a little more rustic than what I'd expect as the vacation home of two Manhattan lawyers. But not in a bad way. It has personality."

She smiled. "Want to see the inside?"

He chose to interpret that as a leading question and put on his own jaunty grin. "Absolutely."

She rolled her eyes and opened the car door. "So come on. We'll come back for our bags."

He followed her out of the car and pulled his jacket closer to his body as the cool late-March mountain air surrounded him. "I could swear it's colder here than it was at home," he grumbled.

She nodded. "Probably is. We're at a higher elevation, and cities are always a little warmer because of the population density."

He gaped at her, impressed by her seemingly random knowledge.

She just smiled. "Come on. There's heat inside."

He watched as she took the key from her pocket and opened the heavy wooden door. If he'd been surprised by the building's exterior, he was nothing short of awestruck by what was inside. It was a little like Kate's apartment, but on steroids. The front door opened into a sitting room, decorated with relics from all over the world.

"My mom did this," she said, seeing his reaction and smiling. "She and my dad had a deal. He could do whatever he wanted with the outside, but the inside was hers."

He lightly touched the frame of an old map that hung on the wall. "Was she a big traveler?"

She shrugged. "She wanted to be, but with her job she didn't really have the time. But she always said that one day she was going to retire and see the world. Until then, she just wanted to capture as much of it as she could."

He smiled sadly, feeling the weight of the unspoken reality that hung in the air. Johanna Becket had never had the chance to retire. This cottage was as close as she'd ever come to most of the countries represented here. She'd surrounded herself with dreams that she'd never been able to reach.

"Looks like she did a pretty thorough job," he remarked as he studied the Japanese vase that sat atop an Italian end table.

"Yeah," she said. "I guess so."

Somehow he got the feeling that she didn't completely agree with what she was saying. It was like there was something on the tip of her tongue that didn't want to say aloud. But now didn't feel like the time to push. "Should we get our bags?" he asked instead.

She nodded. "Yeah, let's do that."

* * *

><p>She smacked his hand as he went for the cheese for the second time in a thirty second period.<p>

"Hey! I need that!"

"No, we need it for the pizza. If you keep eating all the toppings we're gonna end up having crust and tomato sauce for dinner."

"How do you know I wasn't gonna put it on the pizza?"

"I haven't seen you put anything on the pizza _yet_."

"Do you want me to grate more cheese?"

"No, I just want you to stop eating the cheese I already grated."

He smirked and crossed the kitchen to where she'd left the cheese grater, which earned him an eye-roll.

"I give up."

"Wise move." He started grating extra cheese while she sprinkled the rest of what was in the bowl over the sauce. "Did you used to cook here with your parents a lot?" He liked trying to picture a preteen Kate here with her family. It was refreshing, sometimes, to remember that she hadn't always been the mature, professional woman that he was used to seeing.

She shrugged. "Pretty often. But mostly just the kind of thing we're doing now. We never made gourmet meals here or anything."

He nodded, and then asked another question that had been on his mind. "Has your dad been here lately? It doesn't feel abandoned."

"He has a landscaper keep it up. I think it hurts him to be here, but it would be worse for him to see it run down."

"What about you?"

She looked up from the pepperoni she was arranging and raised her eyebrows. "What about me?"

He checked himself when he saw how the question had caught her off guard. He didn't always feel himself slipping into research mode. This wasn't Nikki Heat research, it was Kate Beckett research, but that made it all the more sensitive. No matter how honorable his intentions, he had to remember to phrase his questions a bit more gracefully. But now that he'd started asking, he couldn't really back out. "Is it, um… is it painful for you to be here now? Without…?"

She nodded, showing him that she understood. "A little. But it's like with the writing. Does it hurt more to remember, or to forget? And you know what?"

He was a little surprised by how open she seemed, but he went with it. "What?"

"Having you here makes it easier. Being here. Writing. Remembering. I don't… know if I could do it without you. Any of it."

His mind was oddly blank. He knew that if something came out of his mouth it was going to be something stupid, so he resolved to keep it closed. But he found that he needed to do something, so he tossed a final handful of cheese onto the pizza and slid it into the oven. But that left him empty handed and still without anything intelligent to say.

"Castle?" The expression on her face was bemused, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in the way that he'd always found so endearing.

"Mhmm?" He still didn't trust himself to open his mouth. So he didn't.

"I…" She cut herself off, lost somewhere in her own thoughts. But it wasn't thirty seconds before she changed her mind and met his eyes, suddenly very sure. "I love you."

Something about the way she'd said it sounded like a challenge, and he found that he couldn't help but smile. She must have realized it, because while she didn't take what she'd said back, she did backpedal a little. "You don't have to—" she started.

But he gave his mouth permission to open and interrupted her. "I've always loved you."

Her face reddened slightly. "Not _always."_

He shrugged, closed the small amount of distance between them and whispered against her cheek, "It feels like always."

"I've, um…" She shook her head, clearing whatever she was about to say from the air. "No. Never mind." She tried to take a step back, but was impeded by the small size of the kitchen and tripped against the sink.

He stepped back a little, granting her some personal space, but not a lot. "You've what?" he prodded.

"No, nothing, it's not important. We should clean some of this stuff up so we don't have to do it later."

"Don't think I'm letting you off the hook that easily," he warned. "You start a thought, you have to finish it."

But she'd managed to turn around, and it was clear that the only thing she intended to finish was the bowl she'd started to wash.

* * *

><p>This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind for this weekend. He sat in the queen-sized bed – a little too small for total comfort, but if they were actually lying down that might've been desirable – beside her with a book that he'd borrowed from the shelf downstairs, skimming through it without taking much in as he listened to the gentle scratch of her pen against paper.<p>

He wondered what she was writing about. She hadn't given him any indication at all, not that she usually did. In fact, she never said anything to him about what she was writing until he'd finished reading it. Even then, he often had to coax her into talking about it. He guessed that this made sense, since the nature of all the writing she'd been doing was so personal. She wasn't writing about fabricated characters with stories that she was making up as she went along. She was writing about real things that had happened in her own life, and in the lives of the people closest to her. He'd tried to teach her to use writing as a way of dealing with her memories, and it had worked. Writing about her past had become much easier for her than talking about it.

He was glad that she was at least sharing her writing with him. The pretense was that he was helping her with the writing portion, since he had far more practice with storytelling than she did, but the truth was that she'd surpassed the need for his help. Kate was a smart woman. She learned quickly. And whether she'd realized it or not, she'd possessed a certain amount of writing skill before the beginning of their little project. Maybe she wanted his feedback as a confidence booster, but he thought – hoped, even – that there was more to it than that.

If writing was an easier way for her to access her memories than talking about them was, then maybe allowing him to read was a subtle way of granting him access to a part of her life that he wouldn't have otherwise known. She could tell him things about her life, and even herself, that she never would've been able to say aloud. There was an intimacy about it.

However, there was no intimacy about sitting here next to her pretending to read while she remained fully engrossed in whatever world was contained on the page that he'd never seen. Briefly he wondered if bouncing small objects off of her head would have any effect at all. He doubted it. Which, in some respects, he guessed, was his own fault. He had been her teacher, after all, and didn't Alexis always comment on how zoned-out he tended to get when he was writing? He liked that he'd passed something of himself on to his pupil, but he had a whole new understanding of why Alexis got so frustrated with him.

Finally he heard the scratching stop, and he didn't need any further encouragement. He snapped his book closed and looked at her, smiling expectantly.

She gave him a tiny nod and passed him the notebook, her hand trembling slightly.

He managed to put his impatience aside and raised an eyebrow at her. "You good?" They were both used to this by now. Something she'd written had affected her, but he wouldn't know exactly what or how or why until he read it.

She nodded and smiled in a quiet, yet reassuring way. "I'm good. You read."

He didn't need to be told again.

_I was getting ready for my high school graduation ceremony when there was a knock on my bedroom door. "Can I come in?" my mom's voice asked._

_ "Yeah," I responded, pausing to watch her come in with only one eye lined._

_ "You look beautiful," she said._

_ I glanced back at my half-made-up face in the mirror and rolled my eyes._

_ "You _do_," she insisted. "You're growing up so fast."_

_ I was tempted to roll my eyes again, but didn't, afraid that it would smudge my eye makeup. "It doesn't feel fast," I told her._

_ She shrugged. "There's nothing I can do about that, hon. But I did have a thought I wanted to run past you."_

_ I turned away from my reflection to look at my mother again. "What?"_

_ "Look, I know I've been busy with work lately, and you've been busy with your friends, and finishing up high school… I haven't been spending as much time with you as I'd like to. I'm not saying that it's anybody's fault, although if it was it would probably be mine. But I know you're going to have some time this summer, and I thought that maybe I'd take a couple of weeks off of work and we could go on a little trip together. Anywhere you want. Europe. Asia. Africa. We'll see the sights, just the two of us. What do you think?"_

_ I bit my lip, pretending to consider it, but the truth was that I'd already made up my mind. In a few short months I'd be leaving for Stanford. I only had a limited amount of time here in New York with my friends and my boyfriend, and I didn't want to waste any of it traipsing around the world with my mother. I felt guilty about telling her that outright, so I asked her to give me a couple of days to think about it, but ultimately, as I knew I would, I turned her down._

_ I didn't even consider the fact that when I went to college I'd be leaving my parents behind as well, and of course I had no idea that in just six months she'd be gone. But I still wish…_

He closed the notebook when he was finished, and he was aware of her watching him, waiting for some kind of verbal feedback. But he didn't have any. The writing itself was beyond his comment, as he'd already told her, and as for the emotional content… she'd heard it all before. She couldn't change the past, there was no reason to dwell on it, he was sure that her mother wouldn't have held her decision against her… it was all meaningless. All that mattered was that he understood, at least as much as he could, having never been through a similar situation himself.

So instead of talking, he took the leather-bound notebook and set it on the nightstand beside him. She frowned, confused, but then he slid a little further into the blankets that had previously been covering only his legs and curled an arm around her back, suggesting that she do the same. She did, and leaned into his side, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

After a long moment of silence, he figured he should ask. "Did you want to talk about it?"

She shrugged, and he felt her head shaking "no" against the bare skin of his arm. But then after a few seconds, she murmured, "Did you like it?"

He chuckled. "I loved it. And… I hated it."

She pulled away a bit to look him in the eyes, a little bit of hurt showing in hers. "Why?"

"Come here." He pulled her back toward him, smiling at her uneasiness. He would've thought she'd be over it by now, but apparently it was still very present, and still very endearing. "It's _written_ perfectly. You did a great job. I just don't like seeing you hurt. I know coming here was supposed to help you get ideas, but if this is the first thing it reminds you of, then maybe we shouldn't have come."

"It wasn't your idea to come here," she reminded him. "It was mine. And I'm not sorry we did."

He nodded, letting his eyes slide closed for a second as he breathed in the delicate scent of her shampoo. "Okay. Good. Just making sure."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I feel reasonably confident about making the promise that I won't leave you hanging as long as I did that last time... ever again. That was just mean. I'm sorry. I've kind of slowed waaay down with writing lately, compared to what I was doing, but I am starting to get into it again. So hopefully that pattern continues. :)

Reviews make me happy. Leave some, please? Even if you just want to yell at me for leaving this story unattended for so long. That's allowed. And probably justified.

Thanks for reading! And extra thanks for being patient.


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